Questions and Answers

Hi Everyone,

I just recently got married and paid for a NYC wedding out of my own pocket so I’m on a relatively tight budget. The good news is that I have a decent amount of points but I would like to maximize their use. I am new to all this and felt somewhat overwhelmed and would appreciate some help.

I currently have 450,000 points on my Amex Premier Rewards card and 120,000 points on my Chase Sapphire Reserve. I live in NYC and would like a 5-night stay in the Maldives or Bora Bora depending on which destination has the best points redemption. Thank you in advance for your feedback!

Best,
Kevin

Congratulations on your new marriage!

Off the top of my head, I’d consider transferring the Amex MR points to Singapore airlines, if you can find availability on JFK-FRA-SIN-MLE for two in business class. If my math is correct, after it should cost about 87k points per person, per direction, plus taxes and fees, which is just under 350k total for two, round trip.

You can transfer the Chase points to Hyatt for the PH Maldives. As a category 6 hotel, it’d cost 25k points per night (or 12.5k points plus $150 cash per night). However, do note that there is an additional ~$500+ charge per person for round trip airport transfer between MLE and the PH Maldives. Another option for the PH Maldives might be to have you and your spouse each get the Chase Hyatt card and meet the minimum spend quickly. When do you that, you each get 2 free nights at any Hyatt property, worldwide. That’s 4 nights – for the last night, you can combine the points on your new Hyatt accounts, free of charge, then transfer the rest in from Chase so that you have 25k points for the 5th night. Depending on how you meet the $2k minimum spend on each card, that’s at least 4000 points. If you add the free authorized user to each Hyatt card, thats another 5000 points on each card – for a total of 14k points, meaning only 11k more points for the free night. And you can save a bunch of Chase UR points for your next trip!

Agree with looking at the Maldives, and [USER=29]@David W[/USER]’s suggestions are perfect 🙂 I might even consider booking one passenger at the Standard level for Singapore, if you can’t find Saver availability for both.

Tahiti is a rough destination for award travel, and one I wouldn’t consider unless you’re prepared to supplement with significant amounts of cash.

[USER=2720]@KevinNYC[/USER], congratulations as well. [USER=29]@David W[/USER] lays out the process pretty well (although cash and points rates at the PH Maldives are like unicorns. I don’t think I’ve seen them in a while). The property is lovely but I would say that I would think long and hard about traveling that far for five nights. There are a number of beach destinations in the caribbean/central/latin america that would provide a great experience with significantly less stress and wear and tear. I would recommend saving the Maldives and combining it with a trip to Asia or the middle east.