Jamal06

Jamal06

dcht

Is it still recommended to reach out to the hotel about 60 days prior to arrival for paid upgrades?

Also, when does the hotel typically reach out to you regarding the seaplane transfer?

Wozza2404

For paid upgrades, reach out when you like. I had mine confirmed 6 months out this time.

MaldivesFreak

Everybody is in-house. The blue shirts signify the engineering department.


Sounds like bollocks. I just had a look at the 17 menus (English and Chinese, 2013, 2014, 2015 etc) that I have on my HDD and they come to 8.5MB in total. Compressed, only 6.5MB. Judging by the Rangali Bar menu posted above which has no pics, half of them are still only hundreds of kilobytes in size. Most email providers like Hotmail, Yahoo, Google etc set maximum attachment sizes to 20-30MB or thereabouts so there'e no excuse for them not to send. You got the brush-off. If you want the menus from last year I can send you them. PM me your email.

MaldivesFreak

Well, Maldivian Night has changed considerably and is now a much more private affair on the deck of The Quiet Zone pool. A much harder decision..... If I were you and had time I'd do both, but hey, you probably knew I was going to say that. If I had to make a choice between the two I'd base it on
a) whether you'd want to be on the beach and have sand at your feet
b) whether the number of other people at the Fisherman's BBQ (there can, at times, be more than 60) would make it not private enough and sway you towards the more private Maldivian Night with its maximum of 10 tables and less than half the number of people
c) then, of course, you have the 5-course set menu with Maldivian Night as opposed to the full buffet at the Fisherman's BBQ to consider
Decisions, decisions!

goliath

Bidding ended at 2.9 million points today, an equivalent of $14.5k in my account.

Wozza2404

There was one a few years ago for (I think) 7 nights in, I think, a RWV with a lot of food and drink and activities and it went for 1.3m. The only reason I didn't bid was because there was no mention of sea plane transfers. It was won by an FTer who confirmed the transfers were included.

Given this is the Muraka, it seems like a steal at 2.9m. Though at those levels I imagine those with the balances to be able to bid are fairly few... and those who know, or who are bothered, about the auctions are even fewer.

goliath

The winners only get to use the Muraka for one day / zero nights. All nights are spent in a Sunset Water Villa. @:-)

Wozza2404

Oh. Well then if your calculation of $14k is correct, and the winner was planning to spend that anyway, it's a return of 0.5p per point. Not world shattering.

BUT, if you're sat on millions of unused points I guess it makes sense.

goliath

The $ 14.5k was my calculated value if the 2.9m points spent, not the calculated / perceived value of the package sold.

alanslegal

Well or 38 standard award nights here, or 30 nights over at the Waldorf Astoria hmmmmm

Wozza2404

I've totally missed all of this!

In that case the value of the points is subjective. Since moving to Marriott and maintaining my Hilton status via airline status, points are a lot more valuable to me that they would have been a few years ago. 2.9m points would likely have more value than that to me, based on redemptions in Dubai during half term I'd otherwise have to pay cash for.

Whereas if the winner is say on 10m+ points it's an irrelevant amount. This auction, with the sheer number of points involved, is quite a good example of why it's so difficult to value points.

goliath

40 nights at Rangali, actuallly.
40 x 72k = 2.88m

dcht

When you accept an upgrade offer (e.g. WV to SWV) how does your reservation change? I read here that it becomes non-refundable? Does the SRP/rate code change at all on your reservation?