Air France is starting year-around service to the Male this fall, providing another option to use points to reach the Maldives.
Per Routes Online, the outbound flight from Paris will operate on Wednesday and Saturday, returning on Thursday and Sunday from Male.
AF222 dep CDG 8:50PM – arr MLE 10:20AM+1
AF223 dep MLE 1:05PM – arr CDG 7:35PM
The twice weekly flight will run on a three-cabin 777-200. Flights are already bookable.
Using Points to get to Maldives on Air France
Saver award space on Flying Blue, Air France’s own loyalty program, will run you 40-45K one-way in economy, 80K in Premium Economy or 100K in business. Currently, I see no saver business class space.
Delta will run you 97.5K miles in business class or 40K miles in economy class. Delta does not publish award charts, but does allow routing to the Maldives via Europe and charges a fixed rate (currently) for partner awards.
Aeroflot, another SkyTeam partner that serves the Maldives from Moscow Sheremetyevo has much better award space, particularly in business class.
Delta no longer permits complimentary stopovers on round-trip awards so if you stopped in Paris on the way or way back from the Maldives your cost would increase further (65K business from Maldives to Paris, 70K business from Paris to LA). Flying Blue would allow a stopover in Paris on a round-trip award.
CONCLUSION
Another option to reach the Maldives is good news. While redemption rates are not great, another option is now available to get to Male on miles and points.
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