We booked our Delta Award tickets via Malaysian Airlines for 120,000 Skymiles each. My wife and I both did the recent Suntrust business and personal accounts where you earned 140,000 Skymiles for $330 and therefore had plenty of Skymiles for redemption outside of all of our credit card spending on the American Express Delta Skymiles card.
Our routing was Salt Lake City – Los Angeles – Taipei – Kuala Lumpur – Male all in business class.
Trip to the Maldives – the flights part 1
Trip to the Maldives – the flights part 2
Conrad Lounge in Mali and Seaplane to Rangali Island
Beach Villa at the Conrad Maldives
Euro swimsuits and Turtles
The main pool and snorkeling
Our luggage arrives, Vilu, and the Quiet Zone
The employee strike
The strike ends
Ithaa underwater restaurant, Water Villa, and sunset cruise
Salt Lake City to Los Angeles
We took the opportunity to use our American Express Platinum card to go to the Delta SkyClub in Salt Lake City. I usually don’t like to hang out at airports more than I have to – so this was actually the first time I’ve ever been in the SkyClub.
A pretty non-descript flight to Los Angeles and very short. There were some delays in getting a slot to land and we ended up having to jog a little over to the International terminal.
The gate agent was very friendly and offered to give us our business class lounge vouchers. Er – no thanks as they’re already boarding the aircraft.
Luckily there were still plenty of people trying to board that aircraft and not very long security lines to get to the gate but the short connection time ended up costing us dearly which I’ll explain later.
Los Angeles to Taipei
Boarding the flight, the business class seats were huge and spacious. It’s one of the first times I’ve actually been glad that I was having a long flight. The seating was 2 X 3 X 2 and we had two on the side.
The announcement from the captain was that the flight was 14 hours. Each seat had their own video on demand system that included movies, tv shows, music, and games. I have never been so glad to have that long of a flight.
The first meal was Supper.
The appetizer was Malaysian Satay with charcoal grilled chicken and beef skewers with a spicy peanut sauce and a seared Ahi Tuna (which I didn’t eat since I dislike fish).
The main course I chose was the Oriental Style Braised Beef.
Dessert was Fruit Bavaroise with raspberry coulis and fresh fruits.
The seats nearly reclined all the way flat. In fact it was comfortable enough that I slept for 9 hours straight (with no medication). I have never slept that long on a flight and it was certainly welcome.
After waking up, I navigated the video on demand system and watched two episodes of Glee for the first time. I’m not sure if my life is better off now for seeing my first episode but it did make me want to download the Lionel Ritchie and Diana Ross duet “Endless Love”.
I also watched the movie “Inception” for the first time.
The service was always top notch and we were always well taken care of.
For breakfast, we started with a health drink, fruit juice, and fresh fruits.
Then came muesli with low fat milk which was very delicious. My favorite muesli is still Frebaco’s “Musli Frukt” from Sweden but this muesli was very good.
For the main course of breakfast, I chose the Vegetable Frittata that had chicken sausage and hash browns.
It was about the fastest 14 hours I have ever experienced and was very enjoyable. When we landed in Taipei, we all had to get off the plane and so we searched for an airport lounge. We were denied entry in both the Skyteam lounge and the Priority Pass lounge even with our business class tickets and American Express Platinum card. I’m not really that detail oriented – and probably should have read up on all the terms and conditions but since we were only going to be in Taipei for two hours – I didn’t really have the energy to try and dispute. Besides, why waste your time in an airport lounge when you can walk the halls of the Taipei airport with construction everywhere and overvalued goods to buy!
We reboarded the plane and had the exact same plane with our exact same seats again.
Thanks I will definitely do it before I can’t redeem on MH. I have already started researching to go this Jan/Feb 😀
I am shocked that it only cost 120,000 miles to the Maldives. I paid 170,000 to go to Hong Kong on Delta Metal in C. Funny enough I was just thinking of going to the Maldives last night and then I read your report. Awesome! I will definitely have to find out how much it is from NYC on MH.
@nycflyer – make sure and hurry as Malaysia Airlines announced their leaving Skyteam
Great post! will keep it in archive for my future trip to the Maldives! thanks for the details!
Virginia: I thought we were going to be just friends.
Happy Gilmore: What? Friends listen to “Endless Love” in the dark.
I flew MH LAX-TPE-KUL-DPS last year. Found the C seats to be comfortable, although I felt there was no reason that they didn’t make the seats flat bed. There’s definitely room for it. The seats were slightly narrower than other C seats I’ve been in, but it wasn’t bad at all for me. Service and food was great for us too!
The seats and food look decent enough (with an Ambien). This is a good option for getting to MLE that I was not aware of, so thanks for sharing!
That seat looked awfully narrow……..as narrow as United’s new bus. class seats on their 767’s & 747’s? At least, UA’s seats go flat, which I really need to sleep well. I wish more fliers would take a tape measure w/ them to measure those seats!
Enjoyed your detail,
Ken
@Ken – I’ll have to take a tape measure next time – I’m a very big dude and the seat didnt feel narrow at all