Yesterday Hilton made it possible to book the Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi for 120,000 points per night, opening on July 1st. The property itself looks amazing and one of the nice things is that you can get there by speedboat from Male Airport rather than having to take an additional seaplane like most other properties require.
When Hilton removed the award chart one of the promises they made was that award nights would be capped at 95,000 points per night, I said at the time this was still a horrible change because any transparency around the program and award pricing costs and devaluations was removed. It really was only a matter of time before they introduced a property that cost more than 95,000 points per night.
Hilton isn’t stupid so of course the property that first sees this new higher pricing is going to be amazing and ‘worth’ the increased cost (cash prices are $2,000 a night) but it’s only a matter of time until we see other properties start costing more than 95,000 points per night that Hilton originally claimed would be staying as a cap.
Hat tip to OMaaT
Sorta like Miraval with Hyatt. Its own Cat that hasn’t been added to since.
I agree that introducing a new highest category is bad news but they will be hard pressed to find any other properties that they could charge 120,000 points for. This place looks ridonkulous.
These rooms (more like houses) are outrageous. The smallest is 2,500 sq ft. They seem to go up to almost 12,000 sq ft with live-in services. Wow.
Will the free night certs work here?
OMAAT reported yes
RIP, another bad news for us
Opens July 1st. Got me excited for a second but I’m going in May.
That is a huge room with pool for 120k.
Let me add to post
Jesus, the KING OVERWATER VILLA WITH POOL is 813k hilton points a night (5 nights = 4 million points). An overwater villa at the conrad maldives is/was 95k/night. Only the basic beach villas are 120k at the Waldorf. Is that worth 25k over a conrad water villa? Currently have my honeymoon booked at the conrad for November.
Hilton sells points in bulk for $.005 with targeted offers. Since pooling points is very easy at Hilton, the question is: Is the Conrad worth $475/night and the Waldorf worth $600/night? Some properties in the Maldives have halt-off sales to targeted regions, so paid stays could be as low as that anyway. I don’t think you will find anyone in our hobby willing to pay cash stay rates of $1200 – $2000 per night at these places. For myself, I’ll buy points, pool them, and books base points stay at either place with the fifth night free.
The Conrad is totally worth it, I just went there in January for my honeymoon. I had emailed them previously, and they upgraded me to the Superior water villa which is just amazing.