102. Maldives Dream Vacation: Booking, Business Class & Insider Tips

Welcome to Point Me to First Class, the only show for employed professionals, entrepreneurs, and business owners who are looking to optimize their higher-than-average expenses to travel the world. I'm your host, Devon Gimbel, and I believe that your expenses are your greatest untapped asset if you know how to leverage them. Ready to dive into the world of credit card points and miles so you can travel more, travel better, and travel often? Let's get started.

Hello everyone and welcome back to the podcast. On today's episode, I'm bringing you a trip report from my most recent vacation and this was not just any vacation, but before I get to that, let me back up just a second. If you tuned into episode 98 a few weeks ago, that was the second half of my 2024 Points Year in Review series. You will have heard that 2024 had some award travel disappointments for me and my family.

It started with entirely scrapping a week-long trip to Rome that we had booked for June that we replaced with a trip to San Diego at the end of August, which got cut short when my son got pneumonia. A few months later, I tried to take my kids to an all-inclusive resort in Punta Cana for part of their Thanksgiving break, but that trip got canceled after we sat on a United Airlines airplane on the tarmac at O'Hare for six hours without going anywhere before the pilot timed out and we had to return to the airport. Add in to that an ear infection for my other kid during our spring break trip to Costa Rica and it felt like 2024 was just not particularly a winner for us for family travel.

But our last trip of the year more than made up for all of the previous travel fails. Our final trip for 2024 that I had booked but hadn't yet taken at the time of recording my 2024 Points Redeeming Year in Review episode, which also happened to be the most ambitious and points expensive award trip I've ever planned so far, was a trip to the Maldives for my kids' winter break. But based on how our year had been going up until that point, I wasn't entirely convinced that this trip was even going to happen, but thankfully it did. And it was just amazing.

On today's episode, I'm going to share it all with you. How I booked my family of four for an unforgettable week in paradise in the Maldives, what it was really like traveling 40 plus hours to get there and what made it easier for both the adults and the kids, what our total out-of-pocket cash and points cost was for this vacation, and some recommendations for navigating some of the unique logistical challenges that you'll want to know about before you plan your own trip to the Maldives. This episode is going to be kind of part trip report and part Maldivian award travel strategy discussion. So whether you're tuning in just for a little vicarious travel or are ready to jot down tips for making an award trip to the Maldives a little bit easier for yourself, I hope you enjoy this episode.

So first, I wanna dive into what I booked, how I booked it, and what you might wanna keep in mind if you're thinking about planning your own award trip to the Maldives, especially if your preference is to fly business class getting there. Once we cover that, I'm going to give you my honest thoughts about the airlines we flew and the resort that we stayed at.

And finally, I want to touch on some of the really interesting and unique logistical travel aspects that make a trip to the Maldives really different, at least from any place else that I've ever traveled. And I wanna share with you some things to keep in mind to navigate these potential obstacles so that your future dream trip doesn't get derailed.

Now, very uncharacteristically for me, I booked this trip only about four months in advance. Now, usually I really like to book trips, especially big trips like a winter break trip when award calendars first open up around 11 to 13 months ahead of time since I usually have constrained travel dates and I like getting the best chance of finding flights and hotel stays that work well for our schedule.

But for this trip I really couldn't make up my mind about where to book us for my kids' winter break. And every time I came up with an idea of potentially where to go, either there were no great flight options or no great hotel options. And so I had partially planned and then scrapped about four totally different winter break trips by the time it was August 2024.

And up until this point, I have really hesitated to plan trips that require a significant amount of long-haul international air travel with my kids, but my youngest had reached a point where I thought that she would be likely to be able to tolerate a more ambitious itinerary. And so that had me set on looking for hotel award availability internationally.

Add into that that sun and warmth are really high on my list for winter travel and finding great award availability at the two Hyatt properties in the Maldives, the Park Hyatt Maldives and the Alila Maldives is really what set my plan into motion.

Now the Maldives is famous for its luxury properties, its aspirational properties, and there are hotels there that are theoretically available to book using points in the major hotel chains, including Hyatt, Marriott, and Hilton. Now, since I'm a Hyatt Globalist, I really only considered staying at one of the Hyatt properties, so the Park Hyatt or the Alila, and both of these had standard rooms available for the dates that we were looking to stay. In case you're interested at looking into one of these Hyatt properties as well, I want to tell you a little bit more about them.

Both of the Hyatt properties in the Maldives are category 7, so a standard room is going to cost anywhere between $25,000 to $35,000 points per night depending on whether the dates you booked are considered off-peak, standard, or peak pricing. And for us, staying over winter break, the holiday period, that was considered peak pricing for all seven nights of our stay. But to be honest with you, to call the standard rooms at either the Park Hyatt or the Alila property standard or rooms is a huge misnomer as they are neither standard nor really even rooms because the base level rooms at both of these properties are actually huge standalone beachfront villas that measure over 1,000 square feet. They also have private deck off the back of the villa. They're located right on the beachfront.

But one important difference between the standard villas at the Alila versus the Park Hyatt is that every villa at Alila has a private pool, including the standard beach villa. Whereas the base level standard beach villa at the Park Hyatt does not have a private pool. So of course both of these properties have public pools that everybody can access, but if you want to guarantee that your own villa has its own private pool, then the Alila is the only property that's going to offer that of the two Hyatt resorts.

Now another thing that's important to note about both of these resorts, if you're a Hyatt Globalist or if you have a generous Globalist friend or family member that wants to gift you a suite upgrade award, is that these properties do not accept suite upgrade awards at all. So there is no option for you to use one of these at either resort in order to secure an upgrade.

Instead, upgrades to higher category rooms, including overwater villas, can be secured by paying a cash rate, or you can potentially get a complimentary upgrade at time of check-in if you have Globalist status. Although I think at both resorts the complimentary Globalist upgrade is not going to be from a beach villa to an over water villa. It's just going to be to a higher level category beach villa.

So incidentally, a friend of mine was staying at the Alila at roughly the same time that my family was at the Park Hyatt. And so we were comparing the cash rates that we were both quoted that the resort automatically sent to us to offer whether or not we wanted to go ahead and secure an upgrade at either one of these resorts. And what I noticed is that the cash rates quoted to secure an upgrade at the Park Hyatt were significantly higher than the upgrade rates that my friend was quoted for the Alila. At the Park Hyatt, they were over like $1,000 per night.

So keep in mind that it may be possible to upgrade from a standard villa at either property, but it can potentially be very costly, especially depending on what time of year you are planning your stay. Now we lucked out with an upgrade at check-in from the standard beachfront villa at the Park Hyatt. We got upgraded into the beachfront pool villa which was the same exact villa except that we had a private pool. And that made a huge impact on our vacation because of the convenience of being able to have our kids just hang out in our villa pool whenever they wanted.

So if having a private pool is a really big priority for you, then I would recommend that you just book yourself straight at the Alila over the Park Hyatt because all of the villas at the Alila have their own private pool to begin with. But the main reason that I booked us at the Park Hyatt even though I knew the private pool would be a huge deal to my kids and this is probably gonna be irrelevant maybe for many of you and it would have been irrelevant for me if my youngest kid was just a bit older, is that I had read that at the Alila, the way that the villas are situated is that the bathrooms have an indoor-outdoor concept. But specifically the toilet room was part of the outdoor portion of the bathroom.

And I was really concerned that if my youngest got up in the middle of the night and she needed to use the bathroom, she was either going to get lost or scared trying to navigate to an outdoor bathroom on her own. I had also read that the beachfront villas at the Alila property could get a little bit buggy outside depending on the season and the time of year. And for folks who anticipate, shall we say, longer bathroom visits, I figured that could be uncomfortable. So really, just for the sheer reason of having an indoor, air-conditioned, non-buggy toilet room, I booked us at the Park Hyatt instead of the Alila.

But the last two things that I think is important to mention about booking a hotel in the Maldives are additional costs that you definitely wanna be aware of, as they can be significant. And that's the additional transportation charge to reach your resort from the international airport in Malé, and a potential event charge if your stay is going to overlap a major holiday like Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve.

So one of the very unique things about visiting the Maldives is that you are not done traveling even once you reach the main international airport in Malé. And that's because the majority of hotels and resorts are located on different islands throughout the atoll, some of which can be quite far actually from Malé. And so many of the resorts where you can use points to book a stay will arrange your transportation from Malé to the resort itself for you so that you don't have to deal with arranging it or booking it on your own. But you still need to budget for it.

Because depending on where you're staying, you're going to have to take some combination of a domestic flight, a seaplane flight, and or a speedboat ride from Malé before you actually arrive at your resort destination. So for example, to reach the Park Hyatt Maldives from Malé airport, you take a one hour domestic flight to a very small island airport, Kooddoo, and then you board a speed boat for the final 35 minute leg to reach the resort. In comparison, the Alila property is just a single 45-minute seaplane ride from the Malé airport. Now, I'm going to talk a bit more about why this extra leg of transportation matters when it comes to travel planning a little bit later in the episode, but right now I wanted to acknowledge the additional cost of this transportation.

So your hotel website should clearly list the cost of transportation from Malé to the resort per person, but if for some reason they don't, this would be a really important point to clarify before you make a booking somewhere.

So to get from Malé Airport to the Park Hyatt there is an additional transportation charge of $610 per adult and $510 per child and that's for round-trip transportation from Malé to the resort and then from the resort back to Malé airport for your return. And the hotel is gonna book this for you once you share all of your passenger details with them.

So one of the nice things about this is that at least for the Park Hyatt, this round trip transportation also includes having a resort representative take care of you in between your arrival in Malé and your flight to Kooddoo, that first domestic flight, and the reverse as well. So you're basically handheld the entire time you're in the airport. You don't have to think about anything, you just have to follow someone they take care of checking your luggage in for your domestic flight, they help you to a lounge they just did a really lovely job of taking care of us on both ends and so that was a really nice benefit of at least booking through Park Hyatt.

And I have a feeling that a lot of similar kind of category types of hotels offer the same service when you're traveling to the Maldives. But according to their website, the Alila resort charged a similar $660 per adult and $330 per child for the round trip seaplane ride that was required to reach that resort from Malé.

So for my family of four, like I said, we have two kids, they're ages six and nine at the time of travel, our transportation cost from Malé to the Park Hyatt added an additional $2200 to our hotel bill.

So the good news is that since the transportation cost was included as part of our overall hotel bill, I was at least able to earn extra Hyatt points for paying for our entire hotel bill with a Hyatt credit card and also for having Globalist status. Now this transportation charge to reach the resort is mandatory, so you should expect to pay this in some way, shape or form if you're visiting a resort located outside of Malé, though the actual cost is gonna vary depending on what resort you book.

Now, the other charge that you need to know about ahead of time is only gonna apply if your stay overlaps a major holiday like Christmas Eve or New Year's Eve, and that is a mandatory event charge. At the Park Hyatt, there's a Christmas Eve celebration and a New Year's Eve celebration that goes far beyond just the typical kind of dinner options at the resort otherwise.

So the resort goes all out with decorations, has cocktails and champagne on the beach, and a special, really elaborate holiday dinner for all of the guests. And since these resorts are so small and they have to bring in all of the food and all of the supplies to run the resort and host events, there's no option given for you to just opt out of a holiday event, even if you don't want to attend, if you know that you won't eat any of the food or you won't partake in any of the celebration.

And so there's an additional mandatory charge for everyone in your party if your stay happens to overlap one of these holidays. Our stay at the Park Hyatt ran from December 25th through January 1st, so we were there for the New Year's Eve celebration.

And if there's a mandatory event fee during the dates of your stay, that is clearly going to be listed on the hotel booking website when you're first arranging your itinerary. At the Park Hyatt, the New Year's Eve event fee was not insignificant. It was $720 per adult without alcohol included, or $895 per adult with alcohol included, and $545 per child ages 6 to 12.

Yes, my six-year-old, who had turned 6 about 14 days before we landed in the Maldives, still qualified for the $545 child fee for the New Year's Eve event. So for our non-alcohol consuming family of four, that just one single night event fee came out to over $2,500. And if I were to book this trip over again, I personally would go out of my way to avoid having a stay overlap, either Christmas or New Year's Eve. And this is probably very particular to me.

Maybe it's particular to the fact that my kids are much younger. I could imagine that if I had older kids, you know, preteens, teens, older teenagers, this could have been a really incredible event or really lovely family memory. But for us, this was just a completely unnecessary charge. And I think part of it is because, you know, the New Year's Eve event happened on New Year's Eve. We departed the property the next morning on January 1st. And not only that, I'll talk about this a little bit later in the episode in terms of just timing and logistics, but we left the resort at 5 a.m. on January 1st in order to start that journey back to Malé Airport.

And my family's kind of early to bed, early to rise anyway because the time change, you know, my kids were going to bed by around 7, 7:30 every night no matter what. And the New Year's Eve event really started around 8. And so we already kind of figured our kids weren't going to make it until 8 o'clock to do this whole, you know, elaborate New Year's Eve dinner. But my husband and I thought, well, maybe if we put them to bed in the villa, he and I could then take turns. One of us could go hang out there for 30 or 45 minutes, come back, the other one could go, and so at least the adult would be able to enjoy it.

And honestly, what ended up happening was that we were all just exhausted. We'd been there for a week, which was amazing. I had spent a lot of our last day there, you know, packing up, getting us all organized. My kids passed out, I think even before 7 that night. We were gonna have to get up at around 4, 4:30 in the morning, you know, for our 5 a.m. departure. And so we essentially just didn't partake in this celebration whatsoever.

So, you know, for us, I would say that $2,500 charge, not that it was a waste, but that we did not take advantage of it whatsoever. And in all fairness, you know, the hotel website is very, very clear saying that it's a mandatory charge.

You know, everyone has to participate in this, you know, either willingly you come to it or you just skip it like my family did. But I think this is something that, you know, if you're thinking about going to a Maldivian resort and it's overlapping one of these major holidays, I would just be really, really intentional and deliberate about thinking about, you know, the cost of that event and whether or not you anticipate really taking advantage of it. Because again, I could imagine a scenario in which you're there with a partner, you're there with adult friends, you're there with older children, and it's just an absolutely lovely experience for everyone. For us, it was just a really big, empty charge.

And so I think the one thing that I probably would have done very differently if I was trying to plan this trip again, also for winter break, is I would have just scheduled us to leave the resort as late as possible on the 31st and transported from the resort back to Malé on the evening of the 31st and stayed in a hotel on Malé overnight for a January 1st departure. And this was something that I didn't really think about, like logistically, before we went. I'd never been to the Maldives before. And so that's why I want to share this information with you, so that if you don't anticipate really taking advantage of one of those mandatory, expensive resort events, there are other ways that you can still plan a trip there and navigate around them.

So that was a big live and learn lesson for us. I definitely wouldn't repeat it again, and also by no means did it ruin an otherwise amazing stay for us. So before we even arrived at the resort, let's talk about what we spent. So I had booked a seven-night stay in a standard beachfront villa at the Park Hyatt Maldives for 245,000 Hyatt points and was expecting around $4,770 in costs just from the transportation from Malé to the resort and the New Year's Eve event charge for my family of four. For those of you who love calculating redemption values, the cash cost of the same beach villa room at the Park Hyatt for our dates of stay would have otherwise cost around $19,540, but thanks to the beauty of points, the room itself cost us nothing.

And I think this is a great example of the outsized value that you can potentially get from points as this booking got us eight cents per point of value from our Hyatt points. Now I mentioned that we actually ended up getting upgraded from the standard beach villa to the beachfront pool villa at the time of check-in. And that specific villa, the beachfront pool villa that we got upgraded into otherwise for the same exact dates of stay was going for around $30,000 in cash to book during that week.

And so while these upgrades are never guaranteed, they can be absolutely amazing both in terms of your trip experience as well as the value that you derive from your points. So for just 245,000 Hyatt points, we effectively got a $30,000 beachfront villa in the Maldives with a private pool, which is just an unbelievable 12 cents per point redemption.

Now, booking an award stay at a hotel using points is usually very straightforward. And that was the case for booking our villa at the Park Hyatt, you just go to the hotel website, type in the dates that you want to stay, and the search will come back showing you all of the potential cash and points options available for you to choose from.

But in contrast, finding award flights to get us to the other side of the globe was not nearly as straightforward or easy. So let's talk about finding award flights to the Maldives. First, kind of from a big picture level, and then I'm gonna walk through what I actually booked and how I booked it.

So getting to a resort in the Maldives really involves two main journeys. First, to get from wherever you're starting to Malé, the main international airport in the Maldives, and second, transiting from Malé to your resort. Now the second part of that journey is likely going to be coordinated by your resort, who's going to charge you for the transport, but getting to Malé is going to be up to you.

And if you're originating in North America, you're likely looking at at least two international long haul flights to get to Malé. And that's if you're starting from somewhere with access to a relatively large international hub like San Francisco, Chicago, Washington DC, or New York.

You can fly either west to Malé through a major Asian hub like Singapore, or you can fly east to Malé through a European or Middle Eastern hub like London, Paris, Frankfurt, Istanbul, Dubai, Doha, or Abu Dhabi. And there are theoretically a lot of airlines that you can book award flights to Malé on. And if your preference is to fly economy, then you're likely going to have a lot more options than if you're looking for business class awards.

Now my award search was limited by the fact that I had a couple of what I consider to be significant constraints. First I wanted to fly business class from Chicago to Malé since that involves two long flights of around 8 to 13 hours a piece. Second, I wanted to find an itinerary that only had one stop between Chicago and Malé because I'd be traveling with my six and my nine-year-old and I really wanted to minimize how many different flights we'd need to take, how many different layovers that we would have.

Third, I was looking for flights with availability for four in business class, and this can often be the biggest limiting reagent to finding award availability at all. Very, very few airlines routinely make four business class seats available on their flights and this can be particularly challenging, especially during high demand travel times like winter break.

And fourth, I had fairly constrained travel dates. I knew that we could depart anytime between December 20th and 23rd, but I wanted to be back home by January 3rd so that my kids would have a few days to adjust to the time change before they went back to school.

But working in my favor are a couple of things. First, I have a really healthy points balance in multiple different transferable and fixed points currencies. And second, I'm pretty experienced when it comes to searching for award flights. And I mentioned that because if you have an award search that has significant limitations like mine did, you are going to have to offset that by having more options in some other parts of your award search. Like you're either going to need a good amount of points that you're willing to spend to book your flights or you need to have access to multiple different points currencies so that you can expand your options of potential award booking programs that you can access to find flights to begin with. So being able to access lots of different potential airline options with different points currencies, being willing to spend more points than the absolute theoretical lowest saver price for business class awards, and knowing how to be creative and putting together itineraries were all resources that I really needed to lean on to make this trip work. Because despite searching major airline programs like Virgin Atlantic, British Airways, Lufthansa, Flying Blue, Etihad, Emirates, Qatar, and Turkish Airlines, I could not find any award options to fly from Chicago to Malé with just one stop or to return from Malé to Chicago with just one stop for any points price that I considered reasonable.

And what I mean is that there were some airlines, probably Emirates that did have award availability or Etihad is probably Etihad too, but they were pricing out, you know, a one way business class award from Chicago to Malé at like 700 or 800,000 points per person. And I have a lot of points, but I'm not willing to spend that many points even on a flight, you know, an itinerary that's as long as the one that I was looking at.

And so while by no means was I expecting or needing to find, again, sort of the lowest possible saver award for this trip. I still do have an upper limit of what I'm willing to spend on a business class flight. And for me and my family, 800,000 points per person, especially when we needed to fly effectively round trip. That was just not in the cards for me.

And so at that point, you know, I wasn't really shocked. I knew that what I was looking for was pretty ambitious, especially for travel around Christmas and New Year's. And given also I was just trying to book this trip a few months out. You know, I was not looking at award booking calendars right when they were opening 11, 12 months ahead of time.

And so I wasn't surprised, but I also wasn't deterred because this is where getting creative and being able to pull from different points currencies can really, really help. And here's a tip that I want to share with you that I don't ever want you to forget.

If you're running an award search and you keep coming up empty, especially for very long haul destinations that are going to require more than one international flight anyway, and that is to start breaking up your flight search, your award search, segment by segment. So I routinely already run my award searches as one-way itineraries rather than running my full award search as a round trip itinerary. But you can break up an award search even more.

In my case, instead of searching from Chicago to Malé as a complete one-way itinerary, I looked at options to book two one-way flights from Chicago to a European or Middle Eastern hub, and then a second flight from that hub to Malé. Now this is certainly more involved and a bit of an advanced award search move, but I'm sure that there's plenty of you listening who could tackle an award search this way. All it requires is that you have a sense of what the major connecting hubs are between your starting point and your ending point.

And luckily you're not required to have that memorized or somehow know that off the top of your head, because this is where one of my favorite online tools comes in. And that is the website called https://flightconnections.com. So if you haven't heard of it before, this is a really handy website that allows you to see flight paths between airports or to work backwards and see all the options for airports that connect to a particular destination.

So this has nothing to do with actual award availability. You know, this website is not gonna show you award seats that are available, nothing like this. This is really to help you map out potential kind of flight paths, potential connecting points between where you're starting and where you're going.

So even though I basically do have all the international flights that leave from my home airport of Chicago memorized, I wasn't quite as familiar with which specific airlines fly directly into Malé from European or Middle Eastern hubs. But that was really easy to see just by using https://flightconnections.com. And here's what I discovered when I looked for what direct flights operated from either Europe or the Middle East directly to Malé. That in addition to the airlines that I had already kind of guessed, you know, would be there, there was one airline based in Germany called Condor that runs non-stop flights from Frankfurt to Malé. Now, I know I've said this on the podcast before, but I think Condor is one of the best hidden gems for award flight travel. And I'm going to say it here again, do not snooze on learning more about this airline because it offers some really fantastic flight award options, not only from the US to Europe through a tub in Frankfurt, but also from Frankfurt to really in-demand vacation destinations like the Maldives, Mauritius, the Seychelles, Ibiza, and other islands off the coast of Spain and Morocco.

So for those of you not familiar with Condor, it is a partner of Alaska Airlines, so you can book Condor award flights with Alaska Miles. And by a giant stroke of points luck, the Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines merger in September 2024 made it so that for the first time ever, I actually had access to book award flights through Alaska by being able to transfer my American Express points to Hawaiian Airlines and then moving them over to my Alaska account. And that was the missing piece of the puzzle because once I found award space for four in business class from Frankfurt to Malé on Condor Airlines that I could book through Alaska, all I needed to do was find a flight to get us from Chicago to Frankfurt.

Now unfortunately, Condor does not service Chicago directly. Otherwise that could have potentially been a very easy award flight to book. But for those of you who live near a US airport that is serviced by Condor, like JFK, Boston, Miami, or several West coast airports, you can have some amazing award options available to you. So that unfortunately was not open for me, but luckily I had another trick up my sleeve for getting us to Frankfurt. And that was relying on the great love of my points travel life, the Lufthansa Miles and More program.

Luckily Lufthansa was showing business class award availability for four from Chicago to Frankfurt and from Frankfurt to Chicago for both our outbound and return travel dates. So I booked those tickets and we were all set. Before I talk a little bit about the points prices of all of the award flights that I booked, I want to acknowledge that this approach of breaking up a one-way itinerary into separately booked segments has both advantages and disadvantages. In my case, the biggest advantage is that it allowed me to construct an itinerary that was otherwise impossible to book through one single airline program and other than that fulfilled all of my travel criteria. Breaking up an itinerary like this means that you can access different award programs that may not partner directly together and therefore open up options for flights. Now the two major disadvantages is that since these are separate bookings, you're paying the full point price for each flight segment, which means that this approach likely is not going to result in your snagging an amazing deal in terms of the number of points that you will be spending.

So I don't recommend this unless it's basically your option of last resort. I would not have gone this path if I'd been able to find decently priced award flights on an inclusive itinerary from Chicago all the way to Malé. But when that's not possible, this is one route that can actually make it so that you can find some award flights that work for you.

Having two separate reservations for one leg of your itinerary also means that you need to be very, very sure that you are not going to miss your second flight since your flights are not covered under the same reservation. Logistically, I think this would be much more difficult if you need to check bags because that would require you to go to baggage claim at your connecting airport, get your bags, then recheck your bags to your final destination and go through security and potentially passport control all over again from the start.

Now we managed to avoid this by traveling with only carry-on bags, but I want to acknowledge that constructing an itinerary like this would be much less convenient and potentially not possible at all if you really do need to check bags.

So with all of that being said, let's look at what this actually cost. From Chicago to Frankfurt for four on Lufthansa Business Class, I needed 273 Lufthansa Miles and More miles and $40 in taxes and fees. And that was for all four of us. And one of the things that I really love about the Miles and More program is that kids award tickets are discounted and cost 75% the cost of an adult's award ticket.

From Frankfurt to Malé, I booked four business class tickets on Condor Airlines through Alaska Airlines for 240,000 miles, plus about $563 in taxes and fees for all four of us. Now, initially, I just kind of duplicated that itinerary and booked the same exact thing in reverse for our return trip home which cost the same number of points, the same amount in taxes and fees, but there was a really fun surprise that happened at the Malé airport during our return.

So we were in the Malé airport. We had gotten there pretty early for our noon departure flight from Malé to Frankfurt. So I think we had gotten there, I mean by around seven or 7:30 in the morning. So we had a good couple hours that we were spending in the lounge that is at the Malé airport.

And while we were there, I just kind of randomly happened to check award availability for our last flight leg going from Frankfurt to Chicago. And I saw that Lufthansa had opened up six first-class award seats on the same exact flight that we were already scheduled and booked to fly home in business class.

Now, it is very, very rare to find four first-class award seats on Lufthansa. And this was an opportunity that I really couldn't pass up, especially because when you fly first class out of Frankfurt, you have access to Lufthansa First Class Terminal, which is an entirely separate building from the main airport.

And this is really kind of like a once in a lifetime flight experience that I really, really wanted to share with my kids. So I have flown Lufthansa First Class about two or three times before. Usually when I'm traveling solo, I think I traveled once with my husband on Lufthansa First Class, but all of those trips were years ago, at least seven years ago.

So it's been a very long time for me even since I flew Lufthansa First Class, but knowing how much our kids would just love that experience, especially getting their own Lufthansa First Class rubber duckies from the First Class terminal, made this a really perfect way to end our trip.

So while we were waiting for our flight from Malé to Frankfurt, I rebooked us on first-class flights from Frankfurt to Chicago and got our business class award flights refunded. And the cost of four first-class awards on Lufthansa for our last flight leg cost 403,000 Lufthansa miles and more miles and about $578 in taxes and fees. Again, that's total for my family of four.

So all in, I booked my family three business class flights and one first class flight from Chicago to Malé and back for a total of 1,156,000 points and about $1,744 in taxes and fees. Add in the 245,000 Hyatt points that I had used to book us our 7 night stay at the Park Hyatt Maldives. And that brought our total points cost for this trip to just over 1.4 million points and miles.

So like I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, this was by far the most kind of logistically ambitious and also points expensive trip that I have ever booked and also I've never attempted to take my family of four anywhere like the Maldives before so just being able to put this trip together from a logistic standpoint I felt like was a huge success.

But now I wanna tell you more about the actual airline products we flew, what it was like staying in the Park Hyatt Maldives, in case any of you are thinking about building a trip like this of your own, or you've wondered what it's like just to fly these particular airline products for a different trip that you're looking at.

So first let's start with Lufthansa business class. So on a scale of 1 to 10, I would honestly rate this about a 5 out of 10. If I had to think of a word to describe Lufthansa Business Class, it would be mediocre. And I say that because there's nothing really special about Lufthansa Business Class, but it is entirely serviceable.

You know, at the end of the day, kind of all I truly care about for a long haul flight in business class is that I have a lie flat seat and that I'm not sitting so close to a stranger that I have to climb over them or they have to climb over me. That's really the baseline for me and Lufthansa's business class definitely delivered on that, but it didn't deliver on a whole lot more.

If you've never looked at one of the Lufthansa business class kind of seat layouts, the majority of their aircraft are still flying what I consider to be a pretty outdated hard product in business class.

And what I mean by that is the seat configuration in most Lufthansa business class is going to be two seats next to a window, then an aisle, two paired seats in the middle of the plane, then an aisle, and then another two seats paired on the other side at the window. And these two seats are really close to one another and not very private at all. And so the people who are sitting directly against the window, they do not have direct aisle access. They have to literally climb over the person sitting next to them to access the aisle.

Because of this reason, I have actively avoided ever flying Lufthansa business class when I'm traveling solo because I strongly prefer window seats. And like I mentioned, I don't want to climb over a stranger to have to use the bathroom. But I will say that if you are traveling with family, especially if you're traveling with someone who you really want to be able to attend to if they need, especially like a child. Maybe you have a family member or a traveling partner who you know has a little bit more mobility needs or just anything where it actually would benefit you to be closer to your seat partner. Then I actually think the Lufthansa Business Class, the old configuration, is really great.

I liked this for flying with my kids. You know, I think kind of a lot of the newer business class seats where even if they're paired, they are intentionally separated. You know, they're kind of pushed away from each other. There's a huge partition in the middle of the seats, or you can't even climb over from your seat to your seatmate's seat, that can actually be really challenging. I think especially with young children, if they need a lot of attention, they need help when they're eating, just any of that stuff. And so I actually really liked this otherwise not really great Lufthansa business class configuration because of the ease of flying with our kids.

So we sat kind of two by two. We had one row in front of the other. So I sat with my daughter and my husband sat with my son. And it worked out great. In terms of amenities, again, this is not going to be the best business class flight of your entire life. It was completely serviceable. Like there was nothing bad about it, but there was nothing particularly good about it either.

I think the food on Lufthansa Business Class is, again, mediocre. It wasn't that good. Personally, I do not consider myself a foodie and I still didn't like the food that much. I don't think it compares to other business class catering, especially other European business class catering. When you think about like Austrian Airlines and Turkish Airlines that have incredible food, you're not gonna get that on Lufthansa.

So really if what you want, which is all I wanted, is an overnight flight with a lie-flat seat where you can keep your eye on your kid next to you, Lufthansa's great. Otherwise, I would not be rushing to book Lufthansa business class.

The exception being that Lufthansa has now for seven or eight years been saying that they're going to update their business class hard product. They're going to replace all of these old business class seats with much newer, much nicer seats, a much more modern configuration with more privacy. They have finally started to roll out aircraft with this new business class product called the Allegrous product. And so I think that that is a totally different story. But still at this time of recording, the vast majority of Lufthansa aircraft have their old business class configuration.

And so my recommendation is that if you have other options to fly business class that work equally well for your schedule and your points budget, go with those instead. If Lufthansa is your only option, or if it's your only option over another airline that you've read poor reviews about then Lufthansa is totally fine. And that's what this flight was. It was totally fine. It got us from Chicago to Frankfurt and nothing particularly memorable about it, but it was fine.

That is very different from our experience on Condor. So I had flown Condor a long, long, long time ago. I'm talking, well for me it was a long time ago. It was in 2018. I flew on Condor Airlines from Zanzibar to Frankfurt and at that time Condor was still, I think, very much purely a leisure airline. It wasn't really trying to be competitive with a lot of the major other international airlines. And it was good, but not great.

And so I kind of figured that our flight on Condor from Frankfurt to Malé would be very similar to our flight on Lufthansa, but it was so much better. The interior of the Condor aircraft is so much more updated, especially compared to Lufthansa's business class. The seat configuration is great. It's a one-to-one configuration, meaning there's a solo seat against the window, two paired seats in the middle, and then a solo seat against the window. And they have staggered rows.

And so some rows, the paired seats in the middle are very, very, very close together, which is great if you're traveling with a partner or you have two kids and you want to put your kids right next to each other so they can see their seatmate. And then other rows, the paired seats in the middle, the seats are actually very far apart from each other and they both have, you know, like a table in the middle. And so you're not squished up against a perfect stranger. And so there's a lot of different options in terms of how you wanna seat a group.

And so I just thought the seat itself and the configuration was so much better. The aircraft are so much more updated. The seats are not fully enclosed. They don't have a sliding door like some other business class products now, but they do have kind of a curved shell. So when you're sitting in your seat, you don't feel completely open and exposed. And this is in a huge contrast to Lufthansa business class where like everything is just out in the open and you have like no shielding or privacy from anybody or anything. Condor was a lot more kind of cocoony than that. And I really, really liked that on an airplane seat.

Their food was so much better than Lufthansa's catering was. So if you're someone who just wants even like baseline edible airline food, Condor is way, way, way better than that, especially compared to Lufthansa. I'm trying to think, they did not have kids specific catering on our Condor flight, but our kids did fine. One of the things that we always do is we make sure to bring a lot of food that we know that they will be willing to eat and we also kind of give up on wanting them to eat perfectly balanced meals on airplanes.

For us it's more can we just get them fed with something that they are willing to eat. And so you know it involves a lot of goldfish crackers and applesauce packets for us. But for the adults, the Lufthansa catering was great. They also have incredible in-flight entertainment. I think it's like the biggest, best in-flight entertainment screen of any business class that I've ever been on. Great selection of movies and TV and entertainment in general.

So I really recommend Condor Business Class. They also had, I'm sorry, I don't know why this matters so much to me when a lot of other things don't, but they had hands down the most ridiculously comfortable like comforter blanket in Condor Business Class. I am someone who runs cold. I'm very reptilian in nature. I cannot conserve body heat when I'm on airplanes. I'm always freezing. And so a good kind of warm business class blanket really makes a huge difference for me and my comfort level. And Condor just, I'm not even sure what they put in that blanket, but it was phenomenal.

So if you also really appreciate comfortable business class bedding and especially being warm, book yourself a flight on Condor. Great food, great entertainment, really, really comfortable blanket. You really can't go wrong. I was so pleasantly surprised by Condor Business Class. So go and check that out or go and build a trip around flying Condor Business Class. I don't think that you're going to regret it.

Now those flights were good to great, but nothing. I don't think really there's a business class experience that's going to hold its weight against Lufthansa First Class. Now I have not flown every business class in the world. Maybe the new A&A business class can compete with Lufthansa First Class, I'm not sure. But I've flown a lot of international business class and they just can't stand up to the Lufthansa First Class experience.

And specifically the Lufthansa First Class experience when you are flying first class out of Frankfurt airport. So this is not going to be the same if you're flying first class from the States to Frankfurt or Munich or if you're flying from Munich somewhere on first class. Specific to Frankfurt, this is where they have the Lufthansa First Class Terminal. So I mentioned that this is a totally separate building.

It's right next to the main airport, so you can get there. You can walk out of the main airport and walk over to the First Class Terminal, or if you're staying overnight like we did in one of the airport hotels that's attached to the terminal. You can walk out of your airport hotel and walk over to the first class terminal and it is just an extraordinary experience from the time that you check in.

So you never go through the regular airport. They do everything at the first class terminal. They do passport control, they do security. You know, even if you have TSA pre-check, you've probably never walked into a building and been the only people in the entire security area for the entire time you're there. And that's what it's like at the first class terminal. There's about 17 people to help you do anything you need to get your bags through the monitors, to get you checked in. And it is just a flawless experience.

And then once you're inside the first class terminal, again, it is just an experience apart from everything else. Maybe you've been to really lovely airport lounges in other airports. You know, certainly in Singapore, in Doha, in Hong Kong, in Istanbul, there are some fantastic lounges, but at least anywhere I've been, there's nothing like the Lufthansa First Class Terminal that has its own complete, like independent, self-serve and like fully serviceable restaurant. It's got these incredible shower rooms and bathing rooms. It's got so much quiet seating. There's workspaces, there's sleeping spaces. It is just impeccably designed. It is so quiet and so comfortable and you are attended to so well.

And something I didn't realize, as I've mentioned, I've flown Lufthansa First Class a few times solo and with my husband and have been to the first class terminal before, but this is the first time I've been with kids. And I never knew they have an entire kind of kids section of Lufthansa First Class Terminal lounge, which as a parent is a huge relief. I think one of the things that I'm always very, very anxious about is not truly wanting other people to be disturbed, you know, by the fact that I have my kids with me and sometimes kids aren't always in the best mood and sometimes they're tired and sometimes they're cranky.

And knowing that there's just a separate space where it's set up for kids to have fun and it's a place where they can just be kids and not be so concerned about disturbing other people I think was an enormous relief. So if you have kids, do not hesitate to fly first class on Lufthansa. You will be very well taken care of, especially in the first class terminal.

And I just felt like everyone, all of the staff, they're just so attentive. They really try to make you as comfortable as possible. They were so lovely with my kids. You know, they brought them out just some special extra goodies. One of kind of the hallmarks of those homes of first-class terminals, they have these designed rubber duckies, the Lufthansa first-class rubber duckies. If you've never heard of this or seen this, just Google it. You'll see a lot of different versions. They have new versions that come out constantly, and this is the only place that you can get them.

And so when you fly through Frankfurt, you know, they'll give you a rubber ducky as a memento. And so, you know, both of my kids got a Lufthansa First Class rubber ducky, which is just, I think going to be a really, really lovely travel memory for them.

And as part of the experience, as I mentioned, you're in a totally separate building from the main terminal, so there are no gates. There's no point at which you leave the terminal to go to your gate to get on your airplane. Because instead what you do is that an attendant will come and get you and you ride down an elevator to the tarmac level of the airport and then you get driven if you're solo or if there's a just a few people on your flight that they're transporting from the terminal then you'll probably get a very fancy Porsche or Mercedes sedan or SUV.

If you're traveling with kids, apparently you get a minivan, which is totally fine. So we go down this elevator and they load us up into this minivan. And then you get driven to your airplane on the tarmac, which, I mean, if you're someone who loves airports, if you love looking at airplanes, you know, this is a really, really unique experience that I haven't had, you know, at any other airport.

I'm sure there's other airports or services where you can have a similar type of experience, but none that I've ever had. And again, for me, it's always fun and great. But to see my kids, you know, get to be in this minivan driving what feels like feet away from just huge, beautiful, you know, 747s and all these different airlines and aircraft, it was just a really, really fantastic experience.

So at any rate, they drive you straight to your airplane and then you just climb up the stairs and you're on the aircraft and Lufthansa First Class is a really, really lovely flying experience. They have different aircraft, so it doesn't look exactly the same based on which specific type of aircraft you're flying in. But for the most part, there's six to eight seats total in first class, so it's a really small cabin.

The seats themselves, again, they're not the most updated hard product in the world. We'll see what happens if Lufthansa ever gets the Allegro's product into first class as well. But even their "old" first class is just really, really lovely. The seats are enormous. The service is impeccable.

If you are a foodie, you are probably going to love it. I can't tell you that much about the food, I just don't know that much about food. But there's a full caviar service, there's multiple courses. Basically they just take amazing care of you.

And again, for those of you who are considering ever flying first class on Lufthansa or have the opportunity to do it and you have kids. This was just my one and only experience of this, but I was shocked by truly how well my kids were taken care of. I was just kind of hoping we would get on and nobody would notice them. Nobody would pay attention to them, like good or bad. You know, we would just keep stuffing them with Goldfish crackers and it would all be okay.

But you know, the flight attendants were just so attentive to our kids. They really bent over backwards to make them comfortable. They have kids specific amenity kits, which I have never received before on airlines probably because I mostly have flown domestic airlines with my children, but it was just an incredible experience.

So while business class on Lufthansa's old product, I would not go out of my way to recommend to anyone. Their First Class is truly extraordinary and if you're really into points and miles it's something that is really fun to do at least once in your life. So that's my thoughts about the different flights that we took.

And now I want to talk about Park Hyatt at Maldives specifically again for anybody who is thinking about booking at this resort. And then I'm going to end this with just a couple of things that I think are really different about traveling to the Maldives logistically that you'd want to have on your radar if you are planning a trip because one misstep in here could really, really make for an unfortunate experience.

So let's talk about the Park Hyatt Maldives first. I don't know that you can go wrong, honestly, probably saying anywhere in the Maldives, especially any of these higher category kind of points hotels, but the Park Hyatt Maldives was just exquisite. It's a really small resort. There's only about 50 villas total. So there's beach villas and then over-water villas but it is otherwise really small, really, really quiet and just a place where you can do nothing really but relax.

There are a lot of activities available, especially for people who are really enthusiastic about water sports. But otherwise, you're on the island the entire time. This is not the type of thing where you're going to get on a little plane and jump over to a nearby island.

You know, I think about times my family has visited St. Kitts in the winter and you know you can take a ferry over to the island of Nevis and kind of explore that. You're not gonna be doing that at the Park Hyatt and probably a lot of resorts in the Maldives. You're gonna be on that island the entire time and that may be a good thing for some people and not a good thing for others but I thought that it was just incredible. It is beyond picture perfect, beautiful. The water is like 17 different shades of blue and green. It is just stunning.

Now the resort itself, I would highly recommend to anybody who enjoys Hyatts who enjoys the Park Hyatt brand. It was very very consistent with what I expect from a Park Hyatt, but even more elevated. I think the service here was really really unmatched. Every single villa is assigned its own kind of personal attendant and that person will give you their WhatsApp number and they are there to really help you with anything, to make dinner reservations, to help you coordinate any activities that you want to do. You know, if you do have any trouble with your transportation to get home and you need help arranging that, they are there without being intrusive whatsoever.

We had a phenomenal attendant who took great care of us, great care of our kids, and it was really kind of subtle attention. You know, it was not overbearing whatsoever, but things would just kind of show up in our room and we could tell it was because our attendant had heard us talking about something or had noticed that something might make our stay a little bit better and it was just really incredible and lovely.

Now one thing that I think you cannot get away from anywhere in the Maldives that is important to kind of plan around or plan for is the fact that it is expensive and especially when you're thinking about food. Again, every single thing in these resorts has to be brought in from the outside. They are not sourcing food, you know, from the island itself. And a lot of the products they're using are really high-quality products. And so the food is not going to be inexpensive.

And I am someone who has like a psychological barrier around spending money on food. I don't need you all to do therapy with me. I know where it comes from, but I have a big, big problem when I go on vacation dealing with expensive food. And so the Maldives is a place that you just kind of have to be prepared for that in one way or another.

I've actually read a lot of people online saying that they will pack a suitcase with some snacks or easily ready to prepare foods, you know, like ramen noodles or something they can put water into and make a meal out of. We didn't really go that far again, because we were traveling carry on only. And that was really important to us because of our flight itinerary.

But if you've got some extra room in your suitcase, I don't think it's a bad idea just to throw some snacks in there, you know, some nuts or some applesauce, whatever you like to eat. If you can just bring down the cost of food at all, I think that's a good thing. Now this is a resort where if you have Globalist status or if you know someone who can gift you a Hyatt Guest of Honor stay, where you then have Globalist status for your stay, this is gonna save you so, so much money and there's two reasons why.

So first of all, Globalists get free breakfast every single day of their stay. I don't even know how much breakfast would cost because they didn't have the prices listed on the menu for the full buffet. And as a Globalist, you can have access to their full breakfast buffet every single day. And you can also order two full items off the a la carte menu per person. And you get coffee or juice or whatever drink you want. I have to imagine that otherwise the breakfast buffet is easily for a family of four, a couple hundred dollars. I mean, just so much money. But having Globalist means you get breakfast for free. And for us, it was for our entire family. So two adults, two kids, enormous cost savings.

And the breakfast at the Park Hyatt Maldives is phenomenal. It is a huge spread, beautiful fresh food. There's kind of Western options. There's also Maldivian options and some more traditional Asian options. Everything was stunning. The fresh fruit was incredible. They had these little mix your own drink stations every single day. They had like a mix your own cold brew station every single day. Just breakfast was phenomenal and even better when you don't have to pay for it.

Otherwise, the other benefit of having Globalist status, the Park Hyatt Maldives is that every single day they have a poolside kind of bar and restaurant next to the main pool at the resort. And every day from, I think it was 5pm to 7pm, there was a Globalist happy hour where if you went to that poolside restaurant, you would get this kind of preset, a tray of three hors d'oeuvres, kind of like an appetizer, a little main and a little dessert.

And you would also get a free drink off their beverage menu. And they had an extensive list of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. So every single day, again, everyone in your room under your reservation could go and have the Globalist happy hour. And that was really helpful for us. One, because it was a little bit of extra food that we didn't have to pay for, which is fantastic, but mostly because the restaurants at the Park Hyatt Maldives open for dinner at 7 and that may be a very regular time for typical people to eat, but my kids usually eat dinner at 5:30 and my youngest is usually in bed at 7. And so for us to go to a sit-down restaurant that doesn't open until 7, we're likely not going to be eating until 8. That is actually a really big shift for our family.

So there were a lot of nights where we would go to the Globalist Happy Hour and eat the snacks. They also give you plantain chips, which my children ate in pounds. They could get a smoothie or something else to drink, and then we could just order something off of the actual poolside bar menu for them to eat for dinner, and that would be enough for dinner for us a lot of nights.

So, if you're traveling, especially with younger kids, I think that's something that's really important to keep in mind just in terms of offsetting the cost of food but also just the logistics of the schedule. It was a little bit hard for us in terms of just trying different dinner restaurants because especially in the beginning of the trip, our kids were just really tired, you know, by the time it was 7 p.m. And so we didn't try all the restaurants that were on the property.

There are four main dinner restaurants. I believe one of them is kind of a sushi concept, one of them is more of a high-end vegan concept. And then there's the main restaurant that serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner throughout the day. And then the poolside bar and restaurant. We ended up eating at the poolside bar and restaurant for lunch and dinner most days, just because it was so convenient for us for the scheduling. And they had the most food options that my kids loved. But all of the food that we ate was great. I just really recommend that if you have cost trauma around food, like I do, then if you can be Globalist or get a Globalist guest of honor stay, then it's really going to significantly defray the cost of food.

Now, the Park Hyatt Maldives is not a resort that I would personally consider like a kids resort in the sense that there's no kids club, there's nothing there that makes it overtly kind of a kid magnet. Like there's no huge water park or anything like that. But I think that this was an incredible resort to bring kids, even young kids. Like I said, the room attendants that are assigned to you really go above and beyond to try to make the stay comfortable for everybody in your family. And they actually have a lot of activities that kids can participate in that shows that they know that families are going to be coming here.

So while we were there, they had scheduled kids activities in the afternoon like ice cream tasting and donut making. And you could just sign your kids up for that and they could attend. And I think that was a lot of fun for some kids to attend. They also had an activity where the kids learned how to weave palm fronds into baskets or, you know, fish, different shapes, just fun activities for the kids to do. They also had activities that you could do as a family as well.

One of the things that was a huge hit with, especially my son, but both of our kids, is that they both know how to swim, but they've never been snorkeling before. And specifically the Park Hyatt Maldives is famous for its reef. And so snorkeling and diving are a huge draw at this resort. And my kids have never been snorkeling before. And so we did a snorkeling activity with them, a snorkeling lesson, where one of their dive instructors took our kids into the resort swimming pool, taught them how to snorkel.

My daughter wasn't so into it, but my son really took to it. And then my son and I were able to do a guided snorkeling tour, the two of us with a guide out in the reef the next day. And that was really, really incredible. So if this is the type of place that you think would not be, you know, very amenable to bringing kids, I really want to encourage you to reconsider it.

I think that this was a lovely place for a family vacation. This could also be fantastic, like I said, to go with a partner, go by yourself, go with adult friends. I don't think that you can really go wrong at the Park Hyatt Maldives.

All right, the last thing that I would not want to miss covering on any podcast episode about the Maldives is talking specifically about some of the logistics that you really, really need to be aware of if you want to plan your own trip to the Maldives. And so I had said before that what makes getting to the Maldives, especially to your final destination in the Maldives, really, really different than basically any other trip that I personally have taken, is that you're not done once you land at Malé Airport. That feels like it should be, you know, the 95% point of your journey, and it's really like the 60 to 70% point of your journey from the Malé airport, you could still potentially be looking at another seven to eight or more hours of travel until you actually get to your resort.

And this brings up some really interesting kind of planning challenges and obstacles that I want you to be aware of. So the first thing is when you are booking a resort, again you will have separate transportation from Malé airport to get to your resort and the type of transportation matters and can really impact how you actually want to do your scheduling.

So let me tell you kind of what the options are and what I think you need to know about them. So from Malé Airport, you can get to your resort either by seaplane, which is, you know, an airplane that can take off and land from water. It's really, really small capacity. It doesn't fly as high as, you know, traditional commercial aircraft. So that's one potential way to get to the resort you're going to. You may have to do what my family did, which was take a domestic flight from Malé airport to a smaller local airport and then you may also have to take a speedboat from some point to your resort and this is why this matters is because when you're flying on specifically a seaplane the seaplane they cannot fly all times of day. They can only fly during the daylight, and they don't fly during storms.

And so what this means is that if you have an international flight that arrives into Malé, and it's late in the day, if you land in Malé at 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. and you need to take a seaplane to get to your resort, you may not actually be able to take that seaplane the same night that you land in Malé. You may have to overnight in Malé and then take the first seaplane out because when we were in the Maldives, again this was in December, sunrise and sunset, the sun did not rise until I think at least 6:30 or 7 in the morning and it set pretty early.

So again, if you're going to be taking a seaplane, you have to be aware of and factor in that they can only operate during daylight and that might impact kind of how early you can leave Malé on your return flight home or how late you should be arriving into Malé when you first come in.

I've heard of people where if they're incoming international flight to Malé, you know, if they're delayed for whatever reason, they land in Malé an hour or two hours late, they miss their seaplane transfer. Sometimes all the seaplanes are full for the remainder of the day. And so again, they're forced to overnight in Malé.

So first things first, if you're going to be going to a resort in the Maldives, make sure that you find out how are you specifically going to be transported from Malé international airport to the resort itself. And if it's a seaplane, just give yourself plenty of time. Do not arrive in Malé late afternoon and also be aware of how early your flight home is going to depart from Malé airport.

Because again, in my brain, I was thinking, even though I knew we had to take a domestic flight and a speedboat to get from Malé to the Park Hyatt Maldives, I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me that I should really budget in like six to eight hours for that whole situation to happen.

For us, our return flight from going home, flying Malé to Frankfurt, departed Malé International Airport at 12 p.m., so 12 noon, and we had to leave the Park Hyatt at 5 a.m.

Is when we boarded the speedboat to get from the resort to Kooddoo Airport, and then we had a domestic flight from Kooddoo Airport to Malé. So I just remember thinking, wow, like a 5 a.m. departure is really, really early, especially with two little kids. And so I think if I were to plan this trip again, I would try to arrive in Malé as early in the day as possible when you're incoming, and I would try to depart Malé probably like a late afternoon or evening flight out of Malé.

But just remember, again, especially if you are needing to take a seaplane, the seaplanes cannot operate in darkness. And so you maybe don't want like a midnight flight out of Malé because you'd probably have to get there by seaplane by like 6 PM. And that's a really long time to just hang out in the airport, but factor in that potential transportation challenge on either side, give yourself plenty of room.

Now, the other thing that I think is important to take in mind is whether or not it matters to you to fly a seaplane versus a domestic flight versus taking a speedboat. I mentioned this because I think that this is just, it's a challenging trip. Honestly, it's a lot of travel to get from North America to the Maldives and then to your resort, it can take a lot out of you.

I consider myself to be in relatively good health, but after traveling as long as we were, it was clear to me that we were all very dehydrated, I think especially me. I am someone who really struggles with motion sickness. I have my whole life. I can usually medically and behaviorally kind of navigate around that. But for us, you know, we had flown from Chicago to Frankfurt. We'd spent the night in Frankfurt at a hotel, then flown Frankfurt to Malé, then flew from Malé to Kooddoo on a one-hour domestic flight. Then we got on a speedboat to go from Kooddoo to the Park Hyatt. And so we'd been traveling, you know, for a good over 40 hours. By the time we got on that speedboat, I was already running very, very dehydrated.

I had taken both prescription strength and non-prescription strength anti-nausea medications because I know that I tend to get very motion sick and the 35, 40 minute speedboat ride from Kooddoo to the Park Hyatt for me personally was brutal. I got more motion sick than I have pretty much at any point in my life to the extent that I basically had to be carried off the speedboat when we landed in the Maldives, which is not how you wanna start. You know, you're weak in a tropical paradise vacation.

I needed to be seen by the resort physician and nursing staff. I had a couple hours of IV rehydration. I needed a couple days of oral rehydration therapy. I mean it was for me not the best travel experience that I've ever had. I have to say that I was taken care of incredibly well by the medical staff of the Park Hyatt Maldives.

But if you are someone or if someone in your family, you know, is really prone to motion sickness, I would highly, highly recommend that you consider a resort that maybe does not require you to take a speedboat as part of the transfer option to get from Malé to the resort itself. Hopefully those of you listening have no issues with motion sickness whatsoever. I think if that was not such a huge problem for me, I would have considered going back to the Park Hyatt, honestly, in a heartbeat.

When we were leaving, both of my kids were saying they would love to come back to the Maldives, which, thanks to points, could actually be possible. But I think because of the speedboat ride alone, that resort specifically is one that I'm not sure that I could navigate to again. So I wanted to throw that out there. It's just another really important consideration.

And then the last thing that I want to say is something that worked out really well for my family that you can also consider not only if you're going to the Maldives, but if you're planning a trip that requires a significant amount of travel and you don't actually want to take all of your flights as close together as possible. Something that's worked really well for us is to build in intentionally long layovers so that we can actually stay in a hotel and get half a day's rest or a full night's rest in between really long international flights.

We did this both on our outbound and our return where we stayed overnight in Frankfurt and it was so fantastic for my family, especially Frankfurt airport has multiple hotels that connect directly to the main airport terminal. So you don't even need to take an Uber or a train or anything. You can walk from the main terminal to one of the basically onsite hotels. We stayed at the Sheraton Frankfurt Airport. It was a completely fine airport. Again, that's not the destination in and of itself. It doesn't need to be fancy, but to be able to have a room with beds and a shower where your family can really just rest and decompress, I think made a huge difference, especially for our kids to be able to tolerate how much travel we did.

It was so nice for them to be able to take a nap or to sleep overnight in an airport hotel before getting on another 9 to 13 hour flight. And so if you're looking for a way to make a really long travel itinerary slightly more comfortable, it is going to increase the amount of time it takes for you to get from your starting point to your ending point, but planning in an overnight or a half-day hotel stay is something that I think made a huge difference for our comfort and for our kids' comfort on this trip. And so, that's something that I want to recommend to any of you as well.

So that is it. This was a long one, folks. I didn't know that it was gonna be this long, but I really wanted to tell you not just kind of where we went and what I thought about it, but to give you ideas about how to plan this type of trip for yourself, give you an idea about kind of what went into the travel planning. So I hope that if the Maldives is a destination on your travel wish list, that this helps you plan a little bit easier for your trip. And if you've never considered going to the Maldives before, it truly is a remarkable destination, a place that I'm not sure I ever would have been able to go without points and miles. And so I just want to recommend to all of you, if you've never thought about it before, maybe reconsider that. It's an absolutely amazing vacation. I hope you all had a wonderful winter break, whether you were enjoying yourselves at home or if your travels took you somewhere else. I also hope you have a fantastic rest of your week and I will see you again next week on the podcast.

Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of Point Me to First Class. If you want more tips on turning your expenses into travel, visit pointmetofirstclass.com to learn more. See you next week.