I love the Maldives for its seclusion. The fact that I have to travel to the other side of the world, it takes a day to get to the capital Male, and by the time I’m there I’m still not at the resort is a feature, not a bug. I’m exhausted and ready to immediately relax and the time difference means people in the U.S. aren’t bothering me during the day there. I respond to email early in the morning and have the full day uninterrupted.
That’s why I went to the Maldives 5 years in a row, staying at the Park Hyatt each time and it’s why I plan to try out the St. Regis.
Conrad Maldives
The Conrad though is one of the other really accessible places on points. Despite how expensive rooms are the most any Hilton costs for a standard room is 95,000 points per night. You can get a redemption value relative to the cash price of a room in high season that’s three times normal for the Honors program.
Historically standard rooms have been beach villas, with Emily McNutt noting that water villas have cost up to 322,000 points per night based on the cash price of a room.
Right now though Emily flags that they’re offering water villas at 70% off of that points price. Water villas are pricing out as the standard room for 95,000 points.
And it’s pricing that way in high and low season across nights, any time water villas are available for purchase.
If you’ve had your eye on the Maldives and have Honors points it would be a great idea to book now. They may have just changed the room type for a standard award (and I’ll applaud Hilton greatly for it if they’ve done so!) or perhaps they’re offering these on a temporary sale.
Regardless if you do book I’d wait a few days just to make sure they don’t have hotelier’s remorse offering these rooms at a good rate. Hilton no longer has an award chart of course, there’s no reference point for what the room really ‘should’ cost and no way to know if it’s a policy change, a sale, or something else. But I wouldn’t book non-refundable air yet, just give it a bit to be sure.
Things must be going downhill if they’re reducing rates so drastically. That’s just an observation.
Awesome! I just changed my stay next month from Beach to water villa!
I actually liked the standard Beach Villa room more than our upgraded Superior Water Villa. Still, when going to the Maldives you have to at least experience a water villa and upgrade rates in high season can be crazy!
Nope. I will not spend tourism $$$ (or points) in this type of place. Too many others that are less oppressive (and more convenient to get to)
I stayed there in Feb 2014 with one night in an overwater bungalow (paying the $400/night for the upgrade) and 3 or 4 nights in a beach villa. I actually preferred the beach villa as it felt more private (overwater villas seemed open to your neighbors, especially when swimming), and it was much closer to better snorkeling (near the house reef instead over 3′ of water that went out forever). If you haven’t been I’d recommend at least splitting time between the 2 types just to get a different feel even if they are the same price. Still glad I got to try out the overwater bungalow, but I’m glad I only paid the extra cash for a single night.
It’s an extra $500/person for the seaplane transfer from MLE.
Thanks Gary, I reserved 6 nights in water villa close to a year out. Not sure I will use it – I liked Bora Bora and Moorea and with the new United flights they are going to be easy to get to.