05/13/2024
I finally took my first long haul flight, Qatar Qsuites, for my Honeymoon in April to the Conrad Maldives. Lot of you know one of my hobbies is credit cards. I wanted to share my best redemption so far so everyone can see the POWER!
I wanted to have more flexibility and less overall travel time. So instead of trying to book Qatar Q suites with American Airlines I decided to book directly with Qatar. I tansferred 340,000 Amex Membership Rewards pounts to British Airways, then transferred from British Airways to Qatar. (This was before you could directly transfer to Qatar) Booked JFK -> DOH -> MLE round trip. Cash Price would have been $11,986.10 so I got 3.21Cents per point.
I already had Hilton points from traveling for my job over 4 years. I picked up the Amex Hilton Aspire because its worth it even if already Diamond. 480,000 Hilton points for 5 nights (5th night is free with points). I used my free night Cert for the 6th night. Cash price was $7,073.52 sp I got 1.47Cents per point. I also called last year and prepaid $250 to get the resort credit, and used my $200 from this year for $450 total in free credit.
For my Positioning flight to JFK I booked Amerocan Airlines round trip domestic first through british airways during the 30% transfer bonus from Amex. I booked domestic first because it was only 5k points more so why not? She had never been in domestic first so she at least got to enjoy that before Qsuites :) I can't remember how many points I transferred, but I used 48,000 Avios round trip for both of us. Cash price $1035.60 for 2.11CPP.
We stayed 1 night at the Hyatt Regency JFK before going out of the country. Spent 15,000 hyat points. Cash price: $304.32 for 2.03 Cents Per Point.
Total Cost of travel for me was ~$1000 in flight taxes and fees.
Cash Price of Travel without points: $20,400.24
Before we left on the trip, I got an offer on my Amex Blue Business Plus card that if I referred someone I got 20,000 points instead of the normal 10,000. So I referred my wife for a Amex Hilton surpass card and a no annual fee Hilton Honors card. We were able to hit both sign on bonus for the no Annual fee card from the resort cost over 7 days :). The rest went on my Hilton Aspire.
We ended up getting upgraded and got the sunset water villa with the full pool on the deck. Everything was amazing. The underwater restaurant was the best food I had ever eaten. We even got to swim with a whale shark which I caught on my Gopro! We felt 7 days 6 nights was the perfect amount of time. I think we would have gotten bored if we stayed longer.
I highly recommend everyone check this place out. We chose the Conrad over the Waldorf Astoria because the conrad is a natural Island with a ton of greenery while the Waldorf is a manmade island. Additionally, there is a seperate island for the staff, so the staff are only on the island while working. Finally, we really wanted to eat at the underwater restaurant and it was well worth the price. Everyone MUST go here once in their lifetime. I LOVE CREDIT CARDS 😍 let me know if you want to get started!
