At the beginning of the month I reported that Hilton had raised the top price of an award night to 150,000 points and that this applies only to the Waldorf Astoria in the Maldives. Some redemption nights there are 120,000 points, however.
When this was discovered there were no redemption nights available at all. Even with the higher pricing it wasn’t possible to spend Hilton points for a standard room, and could only use ‘points as money’ to book rooms based on the prevailing room rate (which can cost over a million points per night).
However all of a sudden award availability has opened up at this property, and considering cash prices of over $2000 per night to start there it’s a great value use of Hilton points for those who would value the trip.
Credit: Waldorf Astoria Maldives
In fact there are 144 days over the coming year which currently show redemption space at the lowest point prices:
- 2 in May
- 12 in June
- 7 in July
- 9 in August
- 2 in September
- 7 in October
- 11 in November
- 1 in December
- 14 in January
- 15 in February
- 25 in March
- 21 in April
- 18 in May (all currently-bookable dates)
I do not believe all of this space has opened up because of mass cancellations of bookings. It indicates to me that the resort was playing games with its inventory and not making Hilton Honors free nights available. That seems to have changed.
With as difficult as this property has been to book in the past, if you have potential designs on it, I’d make reservations using points as quickly as possible to give yourself the option of a stay if it makes sense for you.
(HT: Head For Points)
I read an article today that despite Maldives having now the highest per capita Covid cases in the world it is all primarily concentrated in the urban areas. The island resorts have not had any reported outbreaks. Further, a great deal of these may have been happening as a result of their allowing in Indian nationals who were using Maldives as a 14 day quarantine spot before flying to other countries. They have now stopped allowing that or anyone traveling from India and many neighboring countries. As well, the article interviewed a number of properties who said that from the two important summer markets (Russia and Germany) there have been no cancellations thus far. So I assume you are right, Gary…not a result of cancellations. They were just being optimistic about demand for a bit and now reality is setting in.
And it’s gone! (queue south park episode)
One of my bucket list destinations. Hopefully next year.
Able to snag 5 nights in August this morning. Had to move quickly and glad I did since only 1 standard award now available.
You’d need to have rocks in your head to go to the Maldives now and well into the future.
Of course if you want to give your new coronavirus vaccination a test run, what better place?
@glenn. Small population, spread out topography, fairly isolated island with a highly vaccinated population. I’ll take my chances.
All these poor souls who schlep to the Maldives blow my mind. Forget about Covid. Do these people realize the cost of getting there? The cost of food and drink? Omg, what a stupid place to vacation.
@watt I don’t get the Maldives, it is expensive to get to, and then the cost of the flight from the main airport to your resort island is more than the cost of an economy ticket flying 12+ hours to an exotic location. Then you’re stuck on the resort paying ridiculous prices for everything. They are genius though, they have convinced everyone to gladly pay for the chance to be trapped on an island and extracted for maximum value.
@ Lange & Watt. For me, this is my honeymoon that has been put off for over a year and a half due to COVID. I don’t mind spending more on a once in a lifetime trip and anyway not spending an outrageous amount of money (besides internal transfer and hotel spending) as I’ve booked entirely with points that have been just sitting there. With that said, there were other destinations on my list but some I’m completely barred from entry (Fiji, Australia, Bali) and others that have ridiculous quarantine requirements (Thailand). This was not my first choice but glad to be going.
150,000 points?
wow – I just finished a 12 night stay at a DoubleTree – and as a diamond with the triple bonus going on right now… I would need to stay 35 nights to get 1 free night at this place or an ENTIRE year in a DT for one of the premium nights?….. or maybe I can just sign up for a credit card and toss it in my drawer…….
who is this world has 1.2m points for 1 night in a Hilton?