I have very little experience booking AP award tickets, so please correct me if I'm not getting good value for miles here.

I want to book 3 weeks in Europe (flexible, but probably Spain, Turkey and Italy or Greece) with a 5-6 day stop in the Maldives in between. I'm planning to be away from December 17 to Jan 7 or 8. I understand award availability is limited that time of year, but hoping there are some options. This is what I'm looking at doing (2 people):-

* YVR -> BCN (AC PY - paid)
* 1-way award to MLE (J)
* Paid 1-way back to Europe (or vice versa - not enough miles for RT)
* IST -> YVR (AC PY)

From what I can tell, the only *A direct flights from Europe to MLE are LH via FRA, TK via IST and Swiss via ZRH (but less frequent). For the MLE leg of the trip I'm flexible on the city to leave from, and the dates, and would probably plan the rest of the trip around it if there was a good flight option.

I found BCN->IST->MLE on TK In J 2 weeks ago but now can't find anything that is not 3-4 stops routing through Cairo and India.

Are there other options / ways to combine the above flights?

One-way awards need to originate or end in North America. You can't book a one-way award between BCN and MLE.

...but you could do MLE-IST-YUL-YVR.

Try a few different dates, many TK routes only go on certain days.

Pretty sure the rules on one-ways outside of NA changed as of Dec. 15, 2015 (along with the devaluation) though I can't find the link right now or the email I received announcing the changes. However, the reward chart says any one-way award requires 50% of the points without specifying any zone restrictions. Also, I just did a dummy booking for one way BCN-MLE in Feb. 2017 and it allowed it with no issue other than it being in Y and loaded with YQ ($234 of the $294 taxes + surcharges!) courtesy of LH.

Not sure what your budget is.
Consider flying from CMB to North America....premium cabin if it's doable for you.
Beware, the cheapest fares may be on dry airlines.

You're absolutely right. I forgot about that bone they threw us...

AI also flies to MLE from BLR in the morning, IIRC. so could see if LH to BLR connecting to the AI flight would be available. Wouldn't be the greatest layover - the LH flight arrives ~1:00 or ~1:30am, IIRC. But a possibility.

Yes, one-way rewards are available, but pose a different problem. If I book a one-way from YVR->MLE (or the reverse), then booking a one-way to Europe becomes incredibly expensive. Is there any way to do a reward on the return, and a one-way on the outbound but at a reasonable price?

I tried a few things, and shifting the dates so that MLE is at the end of the trip, and returning via Asia, appears to work OK. Can do MLE->SIN->ICN->YVR in SQ J and AC PY for 75k miles plus a little taxes (200$ each).

I would still need to book YVR->Europe, and Europe->MLE.

AC does have good one-way pricing to LGW, you could connect onto an LCC from there to BCN. Otherwise try Icelandair via KEF, they usually have decent one-way pricing.