The Best Giveaway I’ve Ever Done, Comment Here for Chance to Win 2 Nights at Al Maha!

I’m going to visit Al Maha Desert Resort next month. Lucky called it his favorite Starwood Starpoints redemption ever. It’s an all-inclusive with standalone villas and infinity pools in the desert outside Dubai where rates can exceed $1700 per night and is consistently deemed one of the world’s best properties on TripAdvisor.

For bookings made by March 8 Starwood is offering awards there for ‘only’ 39,000 points a night instead of the usual 60,000. And I’m going to use some of my points there.

And I’m going to give away a couple of nights there, too! And it’s thanks to Luxury Travel Diary.

Luxury Travel Diary is a high-end travel blog with great reviews based in the UK that has a bunch of travel auctions with real bargains.

I suppose that folks who already know about these auctions don’t like this added attention, because frankly there aren’t enough bidders relative to the value of the offerings and some of these items go too cheap.

Luxury Travel Diary wanted to highlight some of their deals, and offered to help organize a giveaway of a 2 night hotel stay at Al Maha Desert Resort. As I said, it’s an inclusive resort. So you get breakfast, lunch and dinner. That even includes room service. And you even get two desert activities per night stay at the property. This is a giveaway worth ~ $3000 or 78,000 – 120,000 Starwood points.

To enter: leave a comment on this post with your favorite item up for auction at Luxury Travel Diary, or why you would choose to stay at Al Maha Desert Resort. You may enter two times if you wish and answer those two questions one time each in separate comments.

Contest deadline and drawing winner: Entries close Friday, January 29 at Noon eastern. I will draw winner with the assistance of random.org.

The fine print: The winner will be able to pick when to redeem the nights within 6 months. It’s not available on public holidays, Eid, Christmas and New Years (both of which are beyond 6 months anyway, but in the terms I was given). Advance booking is required and it’s subject to availability.

For avoidance of doubt, my own stay next month is paid for with my points. I have no affiliation with Luxury Travel Diary or Al Maha Desert Resort. I am not getting anything in exchange for running this giveaway other than an opportunity to share the place with readers.

I will put the winner in touch with the hotel for booking. They are solely responsible for providing prize to winner. All decisions made in the course of running this giveaway are final and unappealable and your entry signifies your acceptance. The goal here is to make readers aware of a pretty cool auction opportunity, and to give away a stay. So please don’t make it hard on me for doing so!

You probably won’t fly to Dubai and back for a 2 night stay, though you might add onto it and do other things in the region (great opportunity to spend American AAdvantage miles and fly Etihad first class at 90,000 miles each way before the March 22 devaluation, and Etihad even provides a car service anywhere in the UAE… or to spend Alaska miles and fly Emirates).

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. I’d love to stay at the Al Maha as an introduction to the luxury of Dubai! The photos look stunning!

  2. I’m heading to South Africa in June and I would definitely route my flight with a stopover in Dubai just to visit the Al Maha.

    BTW I win an auction through Luxury Travel Diary and their customer service is awesome.

  3. My wife has never been to the UAE and this would be an awesome way to show her a new part of the world!

  4. The auction for 3 nights in a Suite at the 5-Star Das Central, Austria looks like it would be great. Just like Sound Of Music.

  5. Never been to Dubai, and the Al Maha Desert Resort would be a fantastic way to do it for the first time!

  6. I would love to stay in luxury in the Desert. The Al Maha Desert Resort with its pools and included food sounds amazing.

  7. I would love the 3 Luxury Nights At The Iconic Santorini, Greece as it looks like a great honeymoon spot!

  8. The Al Maha stay is, without question, my favorite item up for auction. I’ve been drooling over this property ever since I first saw it!

  9. I have read great things about the Al Maha resort and think it would be a wonderful way to spend two nights in the desert!

  10. I never been to UAE. I would love just to be in the middle of the desert and still get a 5 star resort stay. Amazing!

  11. For auctions, I’d like to stay at the Villa La Maschere near Florence. Unfortunately, the auction still has 6 days to run.

  12. I will probably only make it to the UAE once in my life, so might as well stay at the Al Maha and visit in style!

  13. Al Maha is one of the most magical resorts in the Middle East and it would be a dream to take my fiancee there!

  14. I’d love to stay at Al Maha with my husband as we’ve never been to that part of the world before!

  15. I’d love to stay at the Al Maha Resort, it looks beautiful, and definitely looks like a different feel compared to the Park Hyatt and Grand Hyatt Dubai hotels that I typically stay at when visiting the UAE. If only I weren’t using all of my SPG miles for EK F awards. 😛

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