After waiting around for several years for international travel to re-open, and a general lack of reward availability for business class cabins, I decided that I had to change course when it came to planning to travel. In this case, frequent flier points became the preferred currency of choice, as you could easily cancel a business class ticket, without worrying about your currency being stuck and held with the airlines for several years in the form of “credits”. With this in mind, I located and booked some Qatar Airways Q Suites Business Class Award availability from North America to the Maldives. We would end up on a terrific journey across two luxury resorts. See how we put it all together here…

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This post is one chapter on my trip to the Republic of the Maldives. This trip was enhanced through Marriott Bonvoy Elite Status, Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan and Air Canada’s Aeroplan. For more information on how this trip was booked, please see our trip introduction. For other parts of the trip, please see this index.

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Trip Introduction: Breakaway to the Maldives via Qatar Airways Q Suites Business Class.

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Planning the Trip:

Planning Flights:

Flights from Canada to the Maldives

With the pandemic turning the mileage redemption world upside down, my focus lately has been on paid business class deals. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find many paid discounted fares to and from the West Coast of North America to the Maldives.

In the early periods of the year 2022, Asia was almost completely closed for transiting air travel, and with the Maldives seeing a lot of luxury travel demand during the pandemic, any travel discounts were rare and remote.  With the fact that there were a lot less planes flying everywhere these days, and airlines trying to maximize several years of lost revenue, business class reward availability was at an all time low.

As a result, we set our eyes on Qatar Airways Q Suites to and from the Maldives. Qatar Airways was one of the few carriers maintaining a full schedule through the pandemic and as a result, had a lot more seats by volume. Qatar Airways Q Suites are redeemable through many One World mileage programs including American Airlines’ AAdvantage at 70,000 points or Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan at 85,000 points for Business Class North America to India Sub Continent. 

With no easy way to earn American Airlines AAdvantage Points in Canada, we had been mostly accumulating our points in Alaska Mileage Plan. There is no Canadian American Airlines AAdvantage credit card and the Royal Bank of Canada Avion Visa Card devaluated their conversion rate into American Airlines Advantage down to 70% of a dollar earned, which is a far cry from the days when they occasionally offered a fall promotion of 125% transfer bonuses. Thanks to the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Mastercard, and Alaska Airilnes’ hub in Seattle, we’ve been travelling with them heavily for the past ten years.

Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan sometimes has less access to reward space than other award partners. I didn’t have a lot of luck looking for award space Qatar Business Class on Alaska Airlines. Alaska Airlines rewards from North America start at 85,000 for “saver” award space availability and go up to 200,000 for standard award space availability. After checking through the dry seasons of the Maldives between January – March, I was only able to locate a handful of seats when the reward calendar opened at 300 days out. I also happened to find more space available on Monday’s for some unknown reason.

With that in hand, we were able to book 2 business class reward tickets on Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan getting to experience Qatar Airways Q Suites Business Class on three segments including Qatar Airways Q Suites San Francisco – Doha, Qatar Airways Q Suites Male – Doha and Qatar Airways Q Suites Business Class Doha – San Francisco. Although we over paid a premium of 15,000 miles redeeming through Alaska Mileage Plan over AAdvantage, it was our only option for our particular needs. Taxes and fees on the outbound to the Maldives were $105.15 USD, and on the return it was $178.87 USD.

It was not a bad value as retail flights were approximately $4,800 USD per person to get to Male from the West Coast of the United States.

I was not able to find Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Award Availability from San Francisco – Seattle – Vancouver. As a result, I ended up just ending the reward in San Francisco and purchasing a non stop United Airlines First Class Ticket home for $380 CAD as it was slightly cheaper than Air Canada flights on the same route.

The routing ended up looking like this at the end of the planning stages.

YVR-SEA-SFO-DOH-MLE (Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Award)

MLE-WWW (paid by hotel – Trans Maldavian Airways Seaplane)

WWW-MLE (paid by hotel – Trans Maldivian Airways Seaplane)

MLE-VMM (paid by hotel – Trans Maldivian Airways Seaplane)

MLE-DOH-SFO (Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Award)

SFO-YVR (paid – United Airlines)

Planning Hotels:

The Maldvies has been well covered in terms of it’s luxury resorts. It’s really important to pick your resort carefully. Having now been to four different resorts in the Maldives, I’ve set out my thoughts on what you should be looking at when it comes carefully choosing a resort in the Maldives.

We decided to split our stay between the W Maldives and The St Regis Maldives Vommuli. We were both Marriott Bonvoy Titanium / Platinum level members, so we would take advantage of the free Marriott Bonvoy Elite Breakfast benefit at each hotel.

We decided on The W Maldives mostly as a result of its’ reputation and it’s world class rouse reef for snorkelling. The snorkelling at the house reef at the W Maldives is reported to be amongst the best in the world and the best within the Republic of the Maldives. This five night redemption cost 398,000 Marriott Bonvoy points with the fifth night free, or an average of 79,800 Marriott Bonvoy points per night. After actually having visited, the W Maldives still shines after being open for seventeen years with an excellent house reef that still sparkles after all these years.

We decided on The St Regis Maldives Vommuli Resort as we were also looking for a little luxury. The St Regis Maldives Vommuli remains one of the most aspirational Marriott bonvoy points award redemptions in the world. Our six night redemption initially cost 541,000 points (with the fifth night free), or an average of 90,160 points per night.

Watching the availability closely, I did notice that the pricing reached a low point about 3 – 4 weeks before our trip. I was able to cancel and re-book at 484,000 points(with the fifth night free), or an average of 80,666 points per night saving almost 50,000 Marriott Bonvoy points. I was excited for the opportunity to get to try it, and see whether the hype actually measured up to the product. It was pretty close to perfect in the end.

While we considered the Ritz Carlton Maldives Island, I ended up passing on this property as a result of the lack of free breakfast for Marriott Elites at Ritz Carlton properties. The Ritz Carlton beach also appeared to be entirely man made. In the end, we were really happy that we had the two resort mix of the W Maldives and St Regis Maldives. We didn’t end up feeling like we missed out by not visiting the Ritz Carlton Fari Islands. The mix between the W Maldives and the St Regis Maldives happened to be just perfect for our extended stay.

I needed a one night stay in San Francisco on the way to the Maldives. While we had previously stayed at the Westin San Francisco Airport, for this trip we thought we’d try something different. As a result, we booked in at the San Francisco Airport Marriott Waterfront on a $211 USD rate for an over night stay.

With a nine and a half hour connection in Doha, we could have stayed airside, hung out, at the Qatar Airways Al Mourjan Business Lounge, at the Oryx Airport Hotel for $400 USD) a night. None of these really looked all to appealing so we ended up returning to the Westin Doha Hotel and Spa for a quick stay. We had stayed here before and it was among the closest Marriott Airport hotels to the airport. As such, we checked in here for a brief seven hour stay before our flight back to the United States.

Our points and miles redemption summary:

While this trip was fairly heavy on point redemptions, it was worth it in our view since we hadn’t had a great trip like this since the start of the pandemic. Given several years of accumulating points with no where to use them, we were happy to redeem them on travel at world class luxury resorts.

In summary, we earned and redeemed:

• Redemption: Alaska Airlines Qatar Airways X 4 (2 return tickets for two) Seattle – Male, Male – San Francisco at 85,000 Alaska Airlines Points per ticket = 340,000 Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Miles
• Earned: 4,610 Air Canada Aeroplan Miles (1,519 + 828 + 744 + 1519) on United Airlines Business Class San Francisco – Vancouver as an Air Canada Elite 35 K
• Earned: 4,885 Points (2,220 Base + 1,665 Elite + 1,000 Extra) Marriott Bonvoy points at San Francisco Airport Waterfront Marriott as a Marriott Bonvoy Titanium level member.
• Earned 7,775 Points (5,170 Base + 2,585 Elite + 0 Extra) Marriott Bonvoy points at W Maldives as a Marriott Bonvoy Platinum Level member.
• Earned: 31,098 Points (17,770 Base + 13,328 Elite + 0 Extra) Marriott Bonvoy points at St Regis Maldives Vommuli Resort as a Marriott Bonvoy Titanium level member.
• Earned 4,325 Points (1,900 Base + 1,425 Elite + 1,000 Extra) Marriott Bonvoy Points at the Westin Doha Hotel and Spa as a Marriott Bonvoy Titanium Level member.

While it was a little complicated finding Qatar award availability, it was actually much easier to put all this together than our last trip to Jordan.

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If you have visited the Maldives, what tips do you have to maximize value ?

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