Wide-open reward availability at Hilton’s Conrad Maldives Rangali resort

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• HH says:

  14 Feb14 February 13:14

  Have they still not renovated the beach villas bookable on points? They’re really showing their age… I had to cash upgrade last year to their refurbished villas (splitting my time between a deluxe beach villa and sunset overwater villa – and I much preferred the deluxe beach villa, to my surprise).

  • secretsquirrel says:

    14 Feb14 February 14:53

    The Beach Villas were being updated when we were there a year ago but would not know what ratio have been updated yet.

  • secretsquirrel says:

    14 Feb14 February 15:35

    @HH – we were upgraded to a DBV last year for free when booked a BV on points. We viewed Water Villas but thought the standard WV felt cramped

    • HH says:

      14 Feb14 February 17:17

      That’s a great free upgrade! I negotiated mine down around 20% but whatever I paid was so worth it. Agree the OWV was underwhelming.

      • secretsquirrel says:

        14 Feb14 February 17:39

        @HH – it looks like if they are low occupancy and you’re a returning guest with gold / diamond then you’re in with a very good chance of an upgrade. The first time we booked a BV I was a Diamond but no upgrade as high occupancy.

• zapato1060 says:

  14 Feb14 February 13:14

  Does this include the seaplane unlike Marriott redemptions? How can 2.5k return for a family of 4 be justified in some cases for a 30min seaplane ride? Putin’s egregious but this is utter madness.

  • Rob says:

    14 Feb14 February 13:24

    Given the food cost at Rangali, the sea plane should be the least of your worries!

  • Kevin C says:

    14 Feb14 February 13:30

    Seaplane is not included. It’s an amazing but expensive experience.

    Food is pricey at the Rangali now they don’t serve food in the bar in the evenings and room service can be the cheapest option. It’s a nice resort though and I’m glad we went.

    • Damien says:

      14 Feb14 February 14:04

      Lunch in the bar is till 6. So you can head over just after the free drinks and get the tail end of the bar’s Happy Hour and a burger. Strangely though, I can see there’s another Happy Hour at the quiet zone from 6-7pm. Know they used to do a meet the managers there once per week. But this looks daily on their website https://maruhaba.menumv.com/

      • Damien says:

        14 Feb14 February 14:05

        You don’t’ have to install that app. Just click through it on that web page link

      • secretsquirrel says:

        14 Feb14 February 14:56

        10k fees are silly unless you dine in the most expensive restaurants every night and lunch’s with expensive drinks. Our bill came to 1.8k for 10 days inc seaplane transfers but that was having room service every night. Late breakfast take out the need for paid lunch.

  • Aston100 says:

    14 Feb14 February 13:30

    Woah woah, that’s not the kind of attitude we expect from our London millionaire readership.

    • Rob says:

      14 Feb14 February 13:36

      Sinead was having this discussion out in the Maldives the other week (she took $6k worth of seaplanes in 10 days). Apparently its not a massive money spinner because the aircraft need to operate irrespective of the number of guests.

      • aseftel says:

        14 Feb14 February 16:34

        Ah interesting. I’d noticed that seaplane costs seemed to vary between about $350-900pp and had just assumed that they were milking the price insensitive guests at certain resorts but makes sense that load factor would be highly relevant.

    • JDB says:

      14 Feb14 February 15:08

      @Aston100 many millionaires I know would echo the sentiments as they espouse the concept of the value of money. That doesn’t stop them going on very luxurious holidays, but it rules out the Maldives.

      • No longer Entitled says:

        14 Feb14 February 16:57

        Price is what you pay, value is what you get.

        If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand money.

        • zapato1060 says:

          14 Feb14 February 18:14

          Not even Elon’s underlings would see the value on a 2.5k return 30min seaplane transfer for a family of 4?

        • Rob says:

          14 Feb14 February 19:26

          But bizarrely I’ve never seen anyone interviewed who made a fortune running sea planes ….

          How much would you expect to pay to privately charter a sea plane for 30 minutes (plus 30 mins for it to fly back)?

      • Tom says:

        14 Feb14 February 19:35

        “Many” millionaires I know 😂 I feel pretty alone here, but I’m not sure I know any! 😊

        • Rob says:

          14 Feb14 February 19:45

          Really? Quick Google pulls up a 2022 Credit Suisse study showing there are 3m people in the UK with $1m of assets.

          You’d have £1m, give or take, if you’d taken out a Stocks & Shares ISA in a low cost tracker fund when they launched in 1999 and paid in the max each year, and this would be £1m tax free.

  • secretsquirrel says:

    14 Feb14 February 14:50

    No, seaplane transfer fees are payable

• babyg says:

  14 Feb14 February 14:01

  Having been, i wouldn’t rush back, primarily due to the costs involved – its a £8-10k trip for a week, even if you book flights/rooms on points (unless you eat pot noddle’s every second meal)… plus the hard product is well out of date now, the villa design is very 1980s (yes they are being up dated cosmetically, and the 80s hot tubs are being updated to tiny little pools)…

• Jingtan says:

  14 Feb14 February 14:19

  How easy is it to get some redemption on the WA Maldives? And is it a much better resort than Conrad?

  • Damien says:

    14 Feb14 February 14:27

    Practically impossible. They release 2 rooms per day; a king reef villa and a twin reef villa. Think it used to be about 1pm daily. They’re nabbed pretty damn fast. You might be tempted to try booking individually 5 rooms. then release them at once in order to consolidate…. but they don’t seem to immediately put rooms back on the system. Recently had 4 booked. Released them, but only 3 came back on the system. 4th was much later. One friend did call me last year to say the who of April was free. But I didn’t have enough points. Not sure how he found out.

    • Chabuddy Geezy says:

      14 Feb14 February 15:05

      1pm UK time? I’m thinking about staying in the Hilton as the Waldorf is so hard to book.

• r* says:

  14 Feb14 February 15:09

  Ive always found it amusing how they wont even let you take a bottle of alcohol in your check in bag into maldives, yet they have no problem letting hotels sell it for $15 per tiny beer. Its almost as if theyre trying to exploit tourists under the sham of religion 🙂

  • zapato1060 says:

    14 Feb14 February 18:16

    Haram-bug!

    • meta says:

      14 Feb14 February 23:36

      They are exploiting tourists because the whole country will under the sea in a few decades, so they’ll have relocate the population. All the resorts that have been built and are being built is with this in mind. The more there are the better for them.

      • meta says:

        14 Feb14 February 23:37

        And everything else too including the bans, the expensive food, etc.

        However, there are cheaper resorts too.

• JP-MCO says:

  14 Feb14 February 15:09

  Has anybody from HfP stayed at Rangali? We went in September 2013 and it was pretty average. The year after we went O&O Reethi Rah and it was streets ahead and not too different cost wise – we’ve been going there since. I appreciate Rangali can be booked on points but it’s not that great a value proposition or resort for that matter.

  • Rhys says:

    14 Feb14 February 15:18

    No, but we did run Cat’s four-part review last year!

  • secretsquirrel says:

    14 Feb14 February 15:27

    Probably hundreds have stayed at Rangali from HFP readership if all free on points. 😉 Be careful as booking a Water Villa is not always the best option. A section of WV’s do not get the sun for a proportion of the day.

  • Tom says:

    14 Feb14 February 17:17

    The price difference between the Conrad and Reethi Rah is at least 2x these days, so you’d hope Reethi Rah was better! The WA would be a better comparison as of 2023.

• Patrick Cold says:

  14 Feb14 February 15:50

  I`m sitting in a Superior Water Villa having received a pretty significant upgrade from a beach villa booked with 380,000 points some time ago. Happy days.

  • babyg says:

    14 Feb14 February 16:06

    do they still have the dodgy 1980s hot tubs?

    • Damien says:

      14 Feb14 February 16:13

      do you mean these ones?
      https://photos.app.goo.gl/BkEq7swSpthpRrMh7
      They had them last Feb.
      I think the ones in the Sunrise OWB with just the jet behind you are still there. Think they just retiled them last year. Had booked for them last Feb, but got the upgrade to the other.

  • Cranzle says:

    14 Feb14 February 18:00

    Are you Diamond?

    • secretsquirrel says:

      14 Feb14 February 18:07

      Being Diamond does not guarantee an upgrade as we discovered on a previous stay. I think Rangali is or was the only Hilton property xenotime from auto upgrade for Diamonds.

      • Damien says:

        14 Feb14 February 19:09

        I was just gold then. Think it might have had more to do with the sunrise villas not begin ready, and too many had booked them. Was my 3rd time there and maybe that swayed them to upgrade me.

        • patrick says:

          15 Feb15 February 09:01

          I am diamond but it`s my 7th stay which I think was a factor.

• Damien says:

  14 Feb14 February 16:21

  I love the place. Going back next month. Staff are really amazing. Gave us a wee honour guard on our last day. Also had great banter with other guests at the Gold/Diamond free drinks.

  https://www.instagram.com/p/CaE42ikjvBq/

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