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Update: This error fare also works round trip and to many other cities. See our update post for more US and European cities.
Not sure how long this will last or whether it will be honored, but a one-way from Male, Maldives to New York City on Emirates is pricing at $101 from now until December almost every single day:
Direct link to Google Flights
The flights are all on Emirates:
You can even book it with a stopover in Dubai for $124:
It is even cheaper to London – just $65 one-way (or a bit more with a stopover in Dubai):
Other routes?
I tried a number of other routes and did not see similar prices, but I did not do an exhaustive search. There might be other possibilities!
HOLD OFF ON MAKING PLANS
I would be surprised if this gets honored. Before you go ahead making award or cash bookings to get to the Maldives, I would strongly suggest waiting a few days or even a week or two to make any plans. That said, if you’re looking for a cheap-ish flight to the Maldives, Aeoroflot is currently offering one-ways from around $443:
Again, I would strongly suggest you hold off on any additional bookings.
The Maldives can be expensive
Most of the aspirational properties you see on blogs require an expensive sea plane transfer (~$500 per person), so keep that in mind. When I went in late 2015, we stayed at the Sheraton Maldives Half Moon Bay Resort for two reasons: 1) You can get there by boat from the airport (still about $130 per person round trip if memory serves correctly) and 2) As an SPG Business Amex holder, I had lounge access. That worked out very well as food can be expensive and the lounge saved us a lot of money. It’s not the most terrific location and the coral isn’t in great shape, but there are fish in the water and snorkeling trips were reasonably priced (for the Maldives). If you’re looking to do the Maldives “on a budget”, it’s not a bad choice. Of course, on the other hand, if you’re paying $101 one-way and using an award ticket the other way, maybe the $500 sea plane transfer is more palatable. Again, I doubt this gets honored — but it’s fun to dream. Remember that using an online travel agency should give you 24 hours to cancel (if Emirates doesn’t cancel you first). Best of luck!
Some pics of the Sheraton
H/T: Slickdeals
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[…] week, we published a quick deal for an incredible mistake fare from the Maldives to New York for just $101 on Emirates. Routes were also available to Europe from $65 one-way and you could add stopovers for […]
I just got the email too that they are honoring the tickets! Here is the email they sent:
On 17 May 2017, a number of tickets for Emirates flights originating in Male, Maldives were shown as available for purchase online with a wrong value fare. This was due to an error in the uploading of fares into the online reservation system, whereby the fare was incorrectly filed in the wrong currency. Tickets issued in error during this time were suspended, and corresponding bookings automatically cancelled.
Your booking was one of those affected.
Acting in the best interest of our customers, Emirates has made the decision to honour the fare. Therefore your booking has been reinstated. We will send you the new e-ticket receipt shortly.
If you wish to change the original booking, the original ticket will be refunded and a new ticket at the applicable fare will have to be issued.
If you have decided not to continue with your flight and have already paid for the booking, you can avail of a full refund of the fare and taxes paid. You can live chat with us if you have any query via http://www.emirates.com/livechat
We apologise for the inconvenience this may have caused, and would like to assure you that Emirates remains committed to providing our customers with excellent service and a strong value-for-money proposition.
Thank you for choosing Emirates.
WOHOOOOOO
I read this blog yesterday and called in to cancel my ticket. Today I get a call from Emirates saying they are going Honor the tickets.
Thank good my request to cancel did not go through !
In the future just wait and see and don’t rush to get a refund issued. What a slap in the face to domestic airlines. Emirates is getting $7 for my flight from MLE to DXB (stop over 4 days) than off to JFK.
Emirates just called and they are honouring the tickets 🙂
[…] night, we posted an incredible mistake fare from the Maldives to New York for just $101 one-way or $142 round trip. You could fly with stopovers for a bit more or to many European […]
Dead 🙁
[…] – starting around $2517 on Qatar Airways or Air France and KLM. It’s not the Maldives to New York for $101, but these are nonetheless great […]
So if I buy two RTs from mle to JFK so i can actually leave from JFK and get to maldives, will my flight get cancelled if i skip the first half of the trip?
Yes, it absolutely will. You can’t skip the first leg of a ticket. The rest will get cancelled.
FLL:$103
Nice!
what happens if I don’t fly MLE-JFL do they cancel my return flight?
Yes, that’s how the tickets from full service airlines work to prevent throw away ticketing ploy.
They’ll definitely cancel it. I think all carriers on any itinerary will cancel all of your onward segments if you don’t show up for one.
Your best bet is booking a one-way award ticket to get there. Alaska charges 42.5K miles for a one-way flight on Emirates (which could also have a stopover in Dubai if you want — or Milan if you do JFK-MXP-DXB-MLE. The sign up bonus on the Alaska card right now is 30K. Starpoints transfer to Alaska as well (20K Starpoints = 25K Alaska miles). So there are options for getting there.
Some low cost carriers such as Ryanair, Jetstar etc don’t cancel the return flight if you miss the outbound even if they are booked under a single reservation. That’s why I emphasized “full service airlines” in my previous reply.
Thank you
[…] little while ago, we posted a price mistake fare from the Maldives to New York City on Emirates for $101 one-way. We also noted that you could do a stopover in Dubai for a total of $124 one-way. It turns out you […]
If you buy a Return Flight MLE-JFK/JFK-MLE its only $140