Honeymoon advice for Maldives Westin Miriandhoo

[chrisraw]

Hope you can help, I’m getting ready to book a stay for our honeymoon in the Maldives, we’ve never been but thought the Westin Miriandhoo looked nice (open to other suggestions), I have 218,000 amex points from my business gold card is there anyway I can use that for a stay at a nice place there or is it not worth it? Also I did see I can get an Amex platinum card so wondered if that would be worth it for the Marriott gold card? (We currently have no hotel cards)
So sorry if this is a silly question I just don’t know where to even start and so hope you can help point me in the right direction. I also have the premium BA Amex card with 150,000 avios points if that helps?
All the very best in advance. Chris

[Benilyn]

218K amex points has a 2:3 transfer ratio to Marriot so you get 327K marriott points.

Marriott offers 5th night free if you book on points. So Westin Maldives (random day in Aug) is 240K for 5 nights (base room, beach villa), it is 330k for the Over Water Villa. Breakfast & transfer not included, lunch & dinner also not included. Points used are real examples, there are off peak / peak pricing which will move it up / down a little but not much.

Marriott Gold is not that useful of a status, email the hotel and ask what benefits you get for that status.

With your Avios (if combined with a 2-4-1 voucher) you can get flights to Maldives in Biz class return, but availability is difficult and BA does not fly all year round I think. Using Avios for hotel bookings is a waste of value IMO.

I’ve been to the ‘dives a few times, my recommendation is to get a flight that arrives c9am in the Maldives, and you leave 3pm/4pm (Westin uses sea plane so they can only fly up to 4-5pm, so if you have a late flight (e.g. 10pm Etihad flight) you will be shipped to the airport early and you need to hang around for 5hrs or so……). Up to you to decide if 5 nights is enough.

Are you flexible with your dates or do you need to get after the wedding? From what I read the St Regis is the one to go for, its one of the best in the Marriott portfolio. Beach Villa 365k off peak / Overwater Villa 390K both for 5 nights.

[chrisraw]

Wow, am blown away thank you 🙏 We actually got married last year so this is a delayed honeymoon 🙂

We’ve booked business flights to Singapore on Singapore airlines already (never flown them so really looking forward to it) and then we are around from the 3rd May till the eve of the 14th May.

We’re going to Singapore as my wife’s sister is currently living there…I know we will need a hotel there too if you have any recommendations but am sure will need to buy the rooms as can’t imagine we have enough points.

Dates wise we thought 5 nights would be enough for the Maldives we thought either the 3-8th or the 4-9th….also wow the St Regis looks incredible! If I don’t have enough points do we just pay the difference or can we buy points?

Thank you so much again for the help and hope you’re having a lovely start to the year.

[Tom2]

If you don’t have enough points you can always top up. There are fairly regular sales on points and you can reserve the booking without having all the required points immediately.

[NorthernLass]

A lot of Marriott properties let you top up points bookings with cash. Just do a search on your dates and the system will show you all the options.

[chrisraw]

Hi @Tom2 and @NorthernLass, super fab to know and thank you so much. I will have a look now for the availability.