We had settled in our planning phase that we were going to fly Emirates one way (2 legs), and Singapore Air the other (also 2 legs). The next step was to get booking!
photos via Reuters, Bloomberg, and Emirates
To give plenty of runway, I started hunting for flights in March for this February trip. Most carriers open their flight schedules just under 1 year ahead. Fortunately, both airlines had pretty solid award availability for the timeframe I was searching, so we weren’t really hindered by flight timing at all. Some air carriers only open a limited number of seats to awards, and once those are gone, you can only get on the plane with cash. That allowed us to choose dates based on optimal travel timing, rather than just based on availability like we later did for our Amsterdam trip.
With the total duration of 16 days, we wanted to get home on a Saturday to minimize jetlag before returning to work on Monday, which put our departure on a Thursday. We settled on February 17th, so that the trip would span 2 calendar months and we could use one monthly American Express Uber Cash credit one month, and then again the next month for our travel to and from the airport. The return date would be March 5th.
Both flights were very easy to book, which was one of the big advantages of using these two airlines instead of some other options that might technically offer better value in certain situations, but are more challenging to work with. For Emirates, I set up a family account and added my wife. She transferred about 190k Chase UR points, which mostly came from signup bonuses on an Ink Preferred and a Sapphire. I added about 58k points from both Chase UR and AmEx MR, for a total transfer to Emirates of 248k points. I still have 500 miles left in my account, since the booking actually cost 247,500 miles, but you must transfer in increments of 1,000 points. You can’t transfer Emirates miles between people, so to share in a combined booking, you need to set up a family and add others you want to pool points with, then set a 100% “family contribution rate.” That way, when anyone in the family receives miles, 100% of them will be put in the family pool. I searched for the date we were looking to depart on 2/17, and selected a flight after verifying it was on Emirates famous A380 and not one of the less-desirable B777s. The flight is overnight and landed 2/18. Also note, prices in miles and cash fees have increased since our booking! The screenshot below shows the slightly higher mileage cost and significantly higher fuel surcharges.
Then I set a stopover for the trip in Dubai, and had to select a time for the flight from DXB to MLE on 2/23. Emirates has four such flights, with some odd departure times. We passed on the 3am departure time that arrives just as the day is starting in Male, and instead chose a morning departure time that would arrive a bit after noon.
Tip: on many airlines, booking a one-way or round trip flight with a stopover is an excellent way to save points. For example, this itinerary from LAX to MLE only cost 18,000 miles more per person than just LAX to DXB. That's a much better deal than booking the two segments separately!
Booking was immediate, although I would later find out that seats were rearranged before departure. I originally booked my wife and I in window seats in front/behind one another, but we ended up with one window seat and one in the middle a few aisles up. Fortunately, the entire second floor of the Emirates A380 is arranged in a 1-2-1 (staggered, forward-facing) configuration, so the middle seats still offer separation from your neighbor and direct aisle access.
One way, this same itinerary in cash would have cost about $6,500 per person. Instead, we paid the 247,500 points mentioned, plus $517 in taxes and fees, so the redemption value came out to over 5 cents per point, which is very strong. A single economy ticket on this itinerary was more than $600, so for less than that price, plus a couple years of careful credit card planning, we could both instead fly business class? Yes please.
The Singapore Air flights were equally straightforward to book. For these, I just used the bulk of my Amex MR points balance, transferring 290k of them to the airline to book 2 tickets from MLE to LAX, departing after 5 nights in Dubai and 5 nights in the Maldives on 2/28. These points came from having never spent any of my MR balance in the 1.5-2 years I had been earning them, with the signup bonus for the Gold card and Platinum card, plus regular spending on the Gold card with it’s great earning rates. Similar to Emirates, I then elected to add a stopover of 5 nights in Singapore to depart 3/5. Singapore Air also offers a stopover on this route in Tokyo, because they operate a flight from SIN to NRT and then NRT to LAX. We chose Singapore, however, so we would have a single 15 hour flight to return, instead of two 7-10 hour flights. At the time of booking, there were two daily flights from MLE to SIN, and two options from SIN to LAX. We chose the later flight to Singapore, to maximize time in the Maldives, and we chose the direct option back to the USA, with the other option being the abovementioned route through Japan. Since the last leg of this flight crosses the international date line in the Pacific, the SIN-LAX flight lands the same calendar date on which it departs. So we left at about 8pm and then landed at about 8pm the same day, 3/5.
If booking right now, just like Emirates, prices are higher.
Cash rates for the Singapore Air legs were a bit lower, at about $5,400 per person. With the $108 + 145,000 points per person, we were earning a redemption value of a little over 3.5 cents per point. This is still much better than the 2 cent per point benchmark I like to aim for, and certainly better than the 1 cent per point cash back value.
Our flights were booked, departing Thursday, 2/17, and returning Saturday, 3/5. The total cost was about $750 plus 538,000 points, to get two people to three destinations and around the globe in business class. Next up, the hotel bookings!
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