The Maldives can be a tricky place to get to using miles & points, so it’s great to see that there’s soon going to be yet another option for getting there.
Air France will be launching 2x weekly flights between Paris Charles de Gaulle and Male as of November 1, 2017. The flight will be operated by a three cabin 777-200 with the following schedule:
AF222 Paris to Male departing 8:50PM arriving 10:20AM (+1 day) [Wed, Sat]
AF223 Male to Paris departing 1:05PM arriving 7:35PM [Thu, Sun]
The flight will cover a distance of ~5,140 miles in each direction, and is blocked at 9hr30min eastbound and 10hr30min westbound.
As mentioned above, this flight will be operated by a 777 featuring business class, premium economy, and economy. Based on the seatmap, it looks like the flight will have Air France’s new business class product, featuring fully flat beds and direct aisle access from every seat.
Award availability on this flight is a bit unusual. As of the time of this post, I don’t see any “O” class award seats available, which are typically the saver business class award seats. The FlyingBlue mileage calculator indicates that a one-way saver business class ticket between Europe and the Maldives should cost 75,000 miles.
Oddly I see wide open availability at the cost of 90,000 miles one-way, which isn’t the saver price, but also isn’t high enough to be the flex price. So perhaps FlyingBlue is still working on programming the route correctly, given that they just added it to the system.
So as of now I don’t see any award availability bookable through partner airlines. However, I suspect some space will open up over time.
This will be a fantastic way to get between Europe and the Maldives, given that there aren’t many airlines offering direct aisle access from every seat to the Maldives. This also opens up lots of great one-stop options to get between the U.S. and the Maldives.
Is anyone looking forward to Air France starting flights to the Maldives?
take AUSTRIAN (OS) from Vienna to Male, B767 direct service, flying chef in business class, one of the best business class food in the world ... enjoy!
I dont know but I like the Dubai layover better to the Maldives. Puts the "exotic" into the trip. But stopping in Paris puts the "romantic" in it. Tough cookie. But great option.
Was able to look up the mileage cost on the flying blue website. According to the online calculator It's 100k miles for business class from the United States to Male. For that many miles in business class there are definitely better options from the US (Emirates for 82k Alaska miles, Etihad, Cathay, or Qatar for only 70k American miles, etc...). I suppose compared to the 75k flying blue miles from Europe to Male, the 100k...
Was able to look up the mileage cost on the flying blue website. According to the online calculator It's 100k miles for business class from the United States to Male. For that many miles in business class there are definitely better options from the US (Emirates for 82k Alaska miles, Etihad, Cathay, or Qatar for only 70k American miles, etc...). I suppose compared to the 75k flying blue miles from Europe to Male, the 100k mile cost from USA actually seems like a bargain because it only adds 25k miles for something like LAX to CDG.
So what would be the total amount of flying blue miles required for US to Male? Does it price as two separate awards or is the connection in Paris allowed?
Another one bites the dust in less than 9 months. No point in having the Maldives on your bucket list once just anyone can get there. ;)
@ucipass, it arrives in Male at 10:20am (in the morning) and departs from Male at 1:05pm (afternoon). Not sure why that would require an overnight?
"[..] with the following schedule:
AF222 Paris to Male departing 8:50PM arriving 10:20AM (+1 day) [Wed, Sat]
AF223 Male to Paris departing 1:05PM arriving 7:35PM [Thu, Sun]"
@ucipass
The flight actually arrives to Male at 10.20 AM
This will FORCE you to overnight in Male as opposed to arriving in the morning which would allow you spend your first night at the resort.
You spend extra money and time in a crappy Male hotel.
AF? -- meh
This is great!!! In addition, it looks like the schedule works out well for cabin crew as they'd stay in the Maldives for 3-4 nights before returning back to work on the MLE-CDG flight.