I’m a Rangali now and after lurking the thread for a year or two I’ve got a couple insights.

first, my family of 4 took two flights from the states using avios on Qatar. My son and I from BOS to DOH and my wife and other son ATL to DOH. This was the only way to get 4 business class seats. Searched the award calendar a ton and couldn’t find 4 seats.

So Doha to MLE (all 4 of us) was in coach on separate pnr. I was worried about that for two reasons. First we wanted to check luggage from US to MLE. Turned out that no one batted an eye about that in both atl and bos. Secondly was worried about going to business lounge in Doha since second half was economy. This did have some agents at business lounge in Doha scratching their heads but they talked to a manager and he was fine with it “since business class leg was longer”. On a separate note, the economy class thing to MLE wasn’t bad at all. Decent breakfast was served.

The resort itself is fantastic. It’s definitely amazing in lots of ways. As mentioned way way up thread, I contacted the resort a few months ago on upgrade from beach villa points booking. At that time it was 800 plus for upgrade into grand water villa with a pool- which is what I wanted. Said no thanks then. A day before leaving I contacted the resort to ask again. Mentioned Hilton diamond etc.They offered the same upgrade for 275 plus taxes per night. Sold. So definitely if you’re going on off season at least wait til last minute.

I love Snorkeling and was worried about state of house reef after the latest bleaching. It is really bad, but there are lots of signs of a comeback on the corals. Tons of different fish! You won’t be disappointed if this is a big reason of yours to go.

We are here for 6 more days so I’ll add more on departure.