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Qatar Airways has quite a bit of open Business Class availability to the Maldives from airports throughout the US between February-April 2023, including a bunch of availabilty at the end of March in prime spring break season. When availability drops on this route, it always sells out fast. Book first, ask questions later.
The biggest concentration of one-stop dates are out of Houston and East-Coast cities (IAD, BOS, ATL, JFK). There are a smattering of one-stop dates from the West Coast and Chicago, which gets more plentiful if you don’t mind a 2-stop trip with a positioning flight. I also was able to find 2-stop itineraries from many smaller airports as well.
There is quite a bit of 2+ passenger availability and it’s all bookable for 70,000 AAdvantage Miles. Note that there is even more availability direct to Doha from each of these cities (h/t: VFW), so it’s also possible to build redemptions to other South-Asian/Middle Eastern destinations served by Qatar as well. I was able to find decent availability to the Seychelles, Jordan and Oman, for example.
The Deal
- Fly Qatar Airways Qsuites from the multiple US Airports to the Maldives (MLE) for 70,000 AAdvantage Miles one-way throughout February-April (March has the most dates).
- Best one-stop availability is from IAH, IAD, ATL, BOS and JFK.
- Spotty one-stop and decent two-stop availability from ORD, SEA, LAX and SFO and some regional airporgts
- Additional availability is open to many more of Qatar’s Middle East/South Asian destinations.
Ways to Book
The AA and Alaska monthly calendars are the easiest way to find dates
- AAdvantage – 70,000 miles each way (use portal+aa.com)
- Alaska Air – 85,000 miles each way (use portal+alaskaair.com)
- Avios (Qatar/BA, but I had a much harder time finding availability here) – 70-85,000 each way (use portal+britishairways.com or qatarairways.com)
Quick Thoughts
Qsuites are hands-down one of the best business class products in the world. While it can be easier to find availability from the US to Doha, it’s much more uncommon to find Qatar business class all the way through to MLE…and usually the DOH-MLE leg is the first lose availability. This most likely won’t last long, so book if you find dates that work for you.
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Forgive me, as I’m new at this…I’m finding plenty of availability to DOH, but any time I put in another city (which I know Qatar flies to based on their route map), Qatar doesn’t even come up as a search option. Is there a way to find other places in Europe or SE Asia to fly to to take advantage of this?
I put tickets on hold on AA but have avios and Amex Points. How do i transfer to AA to use them.
Unfortunately, there’s no way to convert avíos or Amex points to AA miles. However, you can look for the dates you found on AA on BA’s website and book them directly if they are showing there.
Thanks a lot for the info. Tried Qatar and the points req. is 170,000 per person for one way to Male. I assume thats very high based on your article
How do you transfer British airways avios points to American Airlines? I’m able to find availability on AA but not British Airways.
I do not think you can convert your avios to AA miles.
Unfortunately you can’t. Sometimes, folks have been able to get something booked over the phone that’s not showing on the website, but beware the hold times right now. You can convert BA avíos to Qatar avíos, so search Qatar’s site as well…you’ll find more availability there.
On AA.com I can find no business availability for any days from IAD-MLE, but I can separately find business availability when I search just for IAD-DOH and then just for DOH-MLE. Is this a known issue, or do I just need to pair up those flights myself and call AA? Thanks!
Alaska shows space, but upon booking:
“We’re sorry, we aren’t able to confirm space on these partner flights. Please try again and choose different flights, dates or cities.”
Two stop itinerary for me & P2 booked JRO-IAD-SEA in mid Jan all in biz (last leg on AS). Looks like connecting via IAD & IAH was plentiful in Jan-Feb with lots of BOS & JFK in March-April to/from SEA, SFO & LAX. There also seemed to be some (I only did a few searches) availability for lie flats via JFK to SFO/LAX on AA metal. Nothing one stop to the west coast. All searches on AA. Didn’t look on AS, which can have a bit more QR inventory, because I’m still burning through my SimplyMiles stash.
Nice! That’s a good one!
Can’t find any available from India via Qatar airways
I couldn’t find much of anything to India, either. I was primarily looking for Mumbia and Delhi, but the legs between India and Doha were incredibly sparse.
So appreciate the heads up! I was able to book 2 seats RT from MCI to DOH in March for 140k each on AA. It’ll be our first flights on Qatar.
Awesome! Have a great time!
Can’t find any available from Atlanta via British airways
Try searching on the AA monthly calendar first and then plug-in specific city pair combinations into BA…BA has the worst display availability of all of them
Keep getting an error on the AA calendar…
What kind of error? You should have the option to switch to a monthly calendar on any search…it will be drop-down menu to the right of the 5-day display.
Thanks for the heads-up, got one from JFK fon 2/11 for my Valentine’s Day trip. Right now I’m going by myself, hope to change it by then, lol.
Ha! Congrats and Good luck!
Didn’t notice that DOH-MLE is in economy ;-(
I saw that as well, on top of that, when picking seats on QR for that leg they want to charge you for any seat assignment you pick.
I’ll keep it for now anyway (I flew DOH-MLE in economy before and it’s definitely not a deal killer) and if anything comes up, I’ll book that instead.
How do we get the DOH-MLE space added to our PNR? I found space from the US-DOH and i read its only 5K more points to add on the last segment. not seeing any availability when searching US-MLE or as multi city
Sorry, which program are do you mean? AA is the same price for MLE as for Doha, for Avíos it depends on the program and origination.
Not sure what you mean by “add onto the PNR.” Do you mean that you already have a Doha leg booked and are trying to add an MLE leg on?
I was using AA. Searched multiple times for IAH-MLE in march but wasn’t finding any availability.I found IAH-DOH for certain dates but not all the way to MLE for those same dates. Thats why i assumed you had to add the DOH-MLE leg separately. I ending up finding IAH-MLE in april so i went ahead and booked it.
I guess it’s gone. I don’t find any via AA site.
Check Alaska – still dates showing up there.
For which city pair? I still see a bunch out there
I am trying houston, atl, iah etc to Mle all over Feb to April and see nothing on AA for 70k
I still see plenty from ATL-MLE. edit: actually I see that they are economy from DOH-MLE
Hmmm…I guess I’m not sure what the issue is. I still a bunch for all of those cities. Are you using the monthly calendar?