COVID was and continues to be a pain in everyone’s you know what. Our last trip was in August 2019 and we were well overdue for a break from it all. After monitoring ongoing updates to Canada’s border restrictions and reopening, I pulled the trigger on booking a trip and the best time to go was around the wife’s birthday.

After looking at various options for flights and destinations, we booked round trip flights on Emirates to Maldives and Dubai.

The Emirates flights were booked in business class using Alaska Airlines points at 85k per person each way for a total of 510k points.

The next decision was to book a suitable resort in the Maldives. As there was a considerable bank of Marriott Bonvoy points stashed away, it was best to use it on one of the top end resorts. We ended up booking the St.Regis Maldives in an Overwater Villa for 6 nights (1 night was free since due to the standard 5th night free promotion) for a total of 470k points.