Review: Park Hyatt Maldives Water Villa

Introduction
Planning & Booking
American Express Centurion Lounge DFW
Emirates A380 First Class Dallas to Dubai
Al Maha Desert Resort & Spa Dubai
Emirates First Class Lounge Dubai
Emirates 777-300ER First Class Dubai to Male
Transfer to Park Hyatt Maldives Hadahaa
Park Hyatt Maldives - Resort & Park Villa
Park Hyatt Maldives - Water Villa
Transfer to Male
Singapore Airlines 777-200ER Business Class Male to Singapore
Grand Hyatt Singapore
Singapore Airlines The Private Room Singapore
Singapore Airlines 777-300ER First Class Singapore to Hong Kong
Singapore Airlines 777-300ER First Class Hong Kong to San Francisco

We made our way through the interior of the island to the jetty that contains the overwater villas.  The further the villa, the better the view.  So I just smiled and crossed my fingers that we'd keep on driving.  We eventually pulled over at villa 43 which is about half way down the curving jetty (6th of 14 to be exact).

Villa 43

Villa 43 ladder to reef

Ladder shot

Etihad First Class Apartment Booked!

After starting our premium flying careers with amazing Asian carriers, we're just now dabbling with the ME3 (Emirates, Etihad, Qatar).  At the moment, the pinnacle of ME3 premium cabin flying is Etihad's A380 First Class Apartment.  The Residence (literally 3 room accommodations on Etihad's A380) 's pretty sweet but unless you're about to shell at $32K for a one-way flight, it's likely unattainable.  Good news is the First Class Apartment is totally attainable with American Airlines miles.  The catch (at least on the flagship JFK - AUH route) is that award space is now only being release at the very last minute.

Emily and I have been talking (this week) about a trip in early March for my birthday.  Our timing was pretty impeccable as the flood gates opened on Wednesday.  Etihad was releasing up to 3 First Class Apartments available for the Abu Dhabi to New York segment.  Major thanks to Gary and Lucky for posting early on this.

Another catch - AA agents in the US sometimes have trouble seeing award availability. For whatever reason, that's not the case for Australian call center agents.

I found seats on a day that worked for our schedule and Skyped the Australian AA call center centre.  After waiting on hold for an agonizing 35 minutes, my call was answered by an extremely friendly agent.  He was able to see the space and had us booked in under 5 minutes.  This morning, the award ticketed!  Total cost was 90,000 AA miles and $38 USD each.

Etihad A380 First Class Apartment

We are both beyond excited.  We do want to spend a day in Abu Dhabi but not much more than that.  So we'll be looking to spend time in Europe before making our way to Abu Dhabi for the flight home.    I didn't think I'd be able to top my Emirates experience but I have a feeling this is going to be even better.

They say timing in life is everything and that was certainly the case here.  I've been fortunate to catch a few of these (Singapore in 2012 and Asiana in 2014) where impossible award availability become virtually unlimited in a very short period of time.  The trick is taking advantage quickly - don't think, just book.  You'll be happy you did.

All the Right Points Turns 2!

It's hard to believe I've been writing All the Right Points for two years!  I started the blog to share my experience earning/burning miles and points with family and friends - something I'm equally (if not more) passionate about today.

This is a wonderful hobby.  Its a game that enables me to open up the world for Emily and I in a way that neither of us ever thought would be possible.  Since starting the blog, we've been on half a dozen long-haul trips together to 13 countries.  We've flown first class on 8 different carriers and stayed in some of the world's best hotels.

Here are some of my favorite posts from the 320 posts and 60 trip reports over the past couple of years:

My favorite trip report series:

A Week (Euro) in Amsterdam and Paris.  We spent a week in May of 2015 exploring Europe and exploiting the weak Euro.

Singapore A380 Suites Class - photo courtesy of The Points Guy (Brian Kelly)

Best flight:

Emirates A380 First Class from Dallas to Dubai.  We both loved this flight and cannot wait to get back on Emirates.  Once you take a shower at 35,000 feet after going to the bars on the plane, it's hard to go bak to anything else.

Emirates A380

Best hotel stay:

W Taipei for New Years last year.  We were just reminiscing about how fun this hotel was.  The New Years party was amazing and we really enjoyed Taipei - hoping to go back soon!

NYE 2014 from the W Taipei

Best lounge:

While The Pier is pretty awesome, I think I'm still partial to Cathay Pacific's Hong Kong lounge, The Wing.  The cabanas, the open-air feel, the Champagne bar...

The Wing Cabana

Best "deal:"

Citi Executive Card 100K bonus of 2014.  I was able to take advantage of this offer 3 times.  300,000 points for $750 (net) in fees.  Amazing!!

Here's to the next two years (and beyond) filled with many more adventures around the world.  Thanks to all of you for reading!!!

Amex Offers Saved Me $1000 in 2015

I've written about American Express Amex Offers a number of times.  Amex really steps up their game at the end of the year and this year was no exception.  I was able to add awesome Amex Offers from places I was going to spend money anyway (i.e. Amazon, Uber, Saks, Instacart) to multiple cards by opening multiple windows and adding the offer to each card.  I was able to add the Amazon offer ($15 off $60 in spend) to 6 of the cards - that's basically $90 in "free" money since you can buy pretty much anything at Amazon.

Adding Amex Offers to your card account is easy

While the year isn't over yet, we're already at $958 in savings across 7 American Express cards.  That is way more than the Amex annual fees we paid ($640) in 2015.

Savings on food, hotels, luggage, and more!

It is super easy to add the offers to your card.  You can add via Facebook or Twitter but I prefer to check out the mobile app because scrolling through the offers is most efficient when there is a long list (I currently have around 85 available offers on my Amex SPG Card).

Once the offer is added, go meet the minimum spend threshold online or in-store and you should receive an email informing you that you've triggered the Amex Offer.  In my experience, credits post in 2-3 days.  You can also stack Amex Offers with other promotions or even buy a gift card to trigger the discount.  I was able to trigger the $80 W Hotels offer by booking Emily a "prepaid" rate at a W in New York in January - even though the stay was outside of the promotional window.

Kudos to Amex for not only launching but continually improving this program with improved offers each year!

60,000 AA Mile Offer from Citi (Targeted)

One thing I've found over the past few years is that targeted credit card bonus offers are awesome.  You typically receive an offer via direct mail, email, or via online advertising. Since I've been heavily leveraging credit card sign-up bonuses to fund my travel addiction, I've noticed that the targeted offers have largely dried up.  No worries as I still managed to earn more than 1,500,000 miles and points in 2014.  Stay tuned for the 2015 review - I thin we're going to beat that number!!

Emily is a bit "behind" me in terms of applying for cards and is still receiving targeted offers.  She received a pretty awesome 60,000 mile AA bonus from Citi last week.  She's had the card before but the terms specify "new accounts only" vs. "first time applicants" so we should be good.  She applied this morning and Christmas came early - approved instantly!

To earn the bonus, you must spend $3,000 in 90 days which is pretty low for such a high payout.  The 63,000 miles earned is nearly enough (67,500 pre-devaluation) AA miles for a one-way first class award ticket on Cathay Pacific to Asia. The annual fee ($95) is waived for the first year and the card provides some great benefits (group 1 boarding, free checked bag, no foreign transactions fees) as well.

I hope some of you were targeted for this offer - it's one of the strongest offers we've seen from Citi all year!

An Easy Retention Offer from Barclays

Annual fees (waived for the firs year) on several credit cards in my "card box" were set to bill in January.  I was hoping for retention bonuses on all three but only lucked out on one.  I was able to cancel the other two cards via online chat in a combined 15 minutes.  I called in to Barclays regarding the upcoming $89 fee on my American Airlines Advantage Aviator Red (fka US Airways Dividend Miles MasterCard).

I was transfered to a retention specialist who quickly gave me two options.  Downgrade to a no annual fee version of the card (far less benefits) or keep the card with another year fee-free. 

I chose option # 2 to take advantage of the card's offerings (10,000 mile rebate on awards, free checked bag, priority boarding, etc...) when flying/redeeming American Airlines miles.  The call took all of 7 minutes and saved me $89 - although I wasn't going to pay that anyway.

I was also targeted for a bonus that offers 2x additional miles on supermarket, movie theater, and utility payment purchases.  

I opted in and will absolutely be pre-paying my utility bill to take advantage of this offer.  I'm reading the offer as 2x additional miles up to 2,500.  So I believe I can put $1,250 in spend on the card to earn 3,750 total miles which I value at $75.  

Barclays seems to be generous with retention bonuses (as well as other targeted earning bonuses) even without much spend on the card.  It's always worth the 5-10 minutes to call in and ask about your options!

Review: Park Hyatt Maldives

Introduction
Planning & Booking
American Express Centurion Lounge DFW
Emirates A380 First Class Dallas to Dubai
Al Maha Desert Resort & Spa Dubai
Emirates First Class Lounge Dubai
Emirates 777-300ER First Class Dubai to Male
Transfer to Park Hyatt Maldives Hadahaa
Park Hyatt Maldives - Resort & Park Villa
Park Hyatt Maldives - Water Villa
Transfer to Male
Singapore Airlines 777-200ER Business Class Male to Singapore
Grand Hyatt Singapore
Singapore Airlines The Private Room Singapore
Singapore Airlines 777-300ER First Class Singapore to Hong Kong
Singapore Airlines 777-300ER First Class Hong Kong to San Francisco

Let me start off by saying the Park Hyatt Maldives Hadahaa is absolutely paradise.  Getting there isn't easy (but can be a lot of fun) but it is/was absolutely worth it.  We will 100% be back.

Welcome to Hadahaa!

I'm going to break the trip report up into a couple of parts.  We stayed in the base park villa for the first three nights and then moved to a water villa for our last night.  In this post, I'll cover the resort the park villa.  Next up will be a bit more about the resort and my water villa review.  Here we go...

The Dhoni during the day

An Unexpected Bonus from Amex

Back in September, I wrote about a successful triple dip at Saks leveraging an awesome Amex Offer.   If you're new to Amex Offers, stay tuned...I'm working on a more comprehensive overview as we go into 2016.  I've saved over $1,500 this year along leveraging them across all of my Amex cards.

Anyway, we needed a couple of things for the house and ended up making a purchase of $436 while earning nearly 12,500 United Miles and American Express Membership Rewards.  For whatever reason, that number recently increased to 18,500 as Amex posted the bonus miles to my account twice!

6,000 point bonus twice

I value United miles and Amex MR points at pretty close to $.02 a piece and often get far greater value out of them than $.02.  So in my mind, that's a $370 rebate on a $436 purchase.  Thanks for the holiday gift/bonus/error Amex!!!

Review: Transfer to Park Hyatt Maldives Hadahaa

Introduction
Planning & Booking
American Express Centurion Lounge DFW
Emirates A380 First Class Dallas to Dubai
Al Maha Desert Resort & Spa Dubai
Emirates First Class Lounge Dubai
Emirates 777-300ER First Class Dubai to Male
Transfer to Park Hyatt Maldives Hadahaa
Park Hyatt Maldives - Resort & Park Villa
Park Hyatt Maldives - Water Villa
Transfer to Male
Singapore Airlines 777-200ER Business Class Male to Singapore
Grand Hyatt Singapore
Singapore Airlines The Private Room Singapore
Singapore Airlines 777-300ER First Class Singapore to Hong Kong
Singapore Airlines 777-300ER First Class Hong Kong to San Francisco

We cleared immigration and waited around 20 minutes for our bags.  Maldives is a dry country and you can be fined/arrested for bringing in liquor (hotels are exempted).  There was a Dutch couple on our flight that had a few bottles of wine with the.  Not sure if they were unaware or if they were seasoned Maldives vets.  Either way, it was entertaining to watch them first try and hide the wine then approach the customs desk and ask them what they should do.  We didn't wait around long enough to see the outcome but moral of the story is - don't try this at home.  It's not worth getting arrested.

After a fairly long wait, our bags came out and we were on our way out of the international terminal.  We met the Park Hyatt's representative in the arrivals hall (no sign but he somehow spotted us) where he grabbed our trolley and helped us make the walk to the domestic terminal.  We were thankful we did this during the day as we would make the transfer (without assistance) at night on the way back with limited time to make our connecting flight to Singapore.

Maldivian Check-In

T
he Park Hyatt's representative took our passports as we approached the Maldivian check-in desk.  He handled everything (the Park Hyatt books these tickets for each guest) while we stood around looking like tourists.  After maybe 5 minutes, boarding passes spit out of the machine and our bags were tagged to Kooddoo which is pretty fun to say.  We were escorted up the stairs to the domestic lounge where we had about 90 minutes to kill before our flight.

The lounge was insanely crowded and I didn't take any pictures.  The internet worked, there was water and serviceable restrooms.  20 minutes before our scheduled departure, we were picked up from the lounge and escorted through security to our gate.

Maldivian Q-300

Time to fly

eBags Price Guarantee Comes Through

I primarily travel with a Briggs & Riley Baseline carry-on that I've had for about 5 years.  Even on a long international trip, I try to bring the carry-on if possible.  The bag is indestructible and I highly recommend it.

Emily is typically packing a bit more (we have a giant Briggs and Riley as well) and so we're usually checking a bag for her.  Somehow I was able to convince her to carry-on to Dubai which is an accomplishment I'm quite proud of.  On the way home, we had accumulated enough stuff done a fair amount of shopping and needed to check bags home.  We ended up with 4 checked bags and several carry-ons which was just too many bags to be lugging 11,000 miles home.

Giant Briggs & Riley lost...then found

So I've been looking for a new "medium sized" bag for future travels.  You can generally find good deals on luggage at Amazon and department stores across the year...and it seems luggage is a great thing to purchase late in the year as well - lots of sales.  I've also purchased several bags from Denver based eBags over the years and have been pleased with their pricing.

I actually found the 25" TravelPro we were interested in purchasing on eBags and Amazon.  The price was nearly $50 cheaper on Amazon (prices have changed several times since my purchase) so I sent in a "price guarantee" to eBags to see if they would match.  A day later I received an email that they would match and provide a 10% discount!

This was actually a quintuple dip:

1)  I purchased the bag for $175 on eBags who provided a $53 credit back to my card for the price match + 10% discount
2)  I put the purchase on my Starwood Preferred Guest Amex which triggered a $10 eBags Amex Offer
3)  I made the purchase through an online shopping portal offering me 10% off the entire purchase
4)  I used past eBags credit (about to expire) to save another $16 on the bag
5)  I earned 5% for a future purchase at eBags which I'll use for holiday shopping

My true out of pocket expense for the bag was about $73 - not bad!