Being loyal to a major hotel chain allows you to gain preferred status, with the status comes unique benefits for the hotel’s frequent guests.
What we received for being a Platinum Member
This year Starwood Preferred Guest Platinum members received a free night as a bonus to the standard benefits awarded.
Starwood Point Value at the Grand Mauritian
Along with the Free Platinum award night we used a 3 night award for total of 36,000 points. Since the rooms were going for around $430 we achieved a point value of $.035. Decent value as most value a SPG point at around $.025.
Bottom Line
It pays to carefully select a hotel reward program and then stay loyal enough to earn status and rewards.
Showing posts with label Mauritius. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mauritius. Show all posts
Grand Mauritian Resort Trip Report
This is the 2nd stop on our trip to the Seychelles, Mauritius, and Paris.
We arrived at the Grand Mauritian Resort and Spa to be greeted with a cool towel and a Grand Mauritian specialty drink (Passion Fruit, Rum, & Club Soda). We were directed to a sitting area overlooking the ocean and were quickly greeted by the General Manager. She introduced herself and inquired about our trip to the Indian Ocean. We had a nice chat and we learned she had recently left her job at the Le Meridien in Paris to serve as the General Manager of this brand new resort.
Hotel
The hotel was less than 60% occupied and had a large company group during the first part of our stay. As a result they were assigning guests to one end of the resort. The resort has two infinity pools. We enjoyed the one off to the right of the hotel as it provided more privacy. The beach was man made so we spent most of our time at the pools. The Italian restaurant Brezza was fantastic and waiters were very friendly. Each night we returned and they remembered our names. The last night we tried the Season restaurant which has food from different parts of the world including Thailand, Africa, French, and Indian.
The Pool
We arrived at the Grand Mauritian Resort and Spa to be greeted with a cool towel and a Grand Mauritian specialty drink (Passion Fruit, Rum, & Club Soda). We were directed to a sitting area overlooking the ocean and were quickly greeted by the General Manager. She introduced herself and inquired about our trip to the Indian Ocean. We had a nice chat and we learned she had recently left her job at the Le Meridien in Paris to serve as the General Manager of this brand new resort.
Hotel
The hotel was less than 60% occupied and had a large company group during the first part of our stay. As a result they were assigning guests to one end of the resort. The resort has two infinity pools. We enjoyed the one off to the right of the hotel as it provided more privacy. The beach was man made so we spent most of our time at the pools. The Italian restaurant Brezza was fantastic and waiters were very friendly. Each night we returned and they remembered our names. The last night we tried the Season restaurant which has food from different parts of the world including Thailand, Africa, French, and Indian.
The Pool
The Ocean
Room
Upgraded at arrival to a balcony suite, the largest they had to offer. In our room were the goods, we were given two large bottles of Evian water, a bottle of red wine, a hat with the hotel logo for me, and a beach wrap w/logo for the wife. The first room had a bad mildew smell, and we were quickly relocated to a nearby balcony suite that did not have the same problem. We saw the GM the next day and she apologized for the first room informing us they had recently had a bad storm and some of the rooms had water damage. It had a large bedroom area, seating area and a flat screen TV. The bathroom was large with a walk in shower, Tub and his/her closets. The highlight of the room was definitely the balcony. A few days we watched the sun set from our balcony with glasses of wine from our free bottle of wine.
The Room
The Balcony
The Location
The hotel is on the West side of the island and I believe the beaches on the East Coast or Southwest coast are nicer. There was not much around the resort other than a few other hotels including another Starwood property the Le Meridien.
Overall we really enjoyed our stay at the Grand Mauritian.
Seychelles, Mauritius and Paris Airline Trip Report
This spring we had the opportunity to redeem airline miles for a trip to the Seychelles, Mauritius, and Paris. A once in a lifetime opportunity. It was all possible by effective use of stopovers and open jaws.
Use of a Stopover and Open Jaw
Let me provide a detailed example how we used both the stopover and the open jaw with the SkyTeam alliance. It was difficult to decide where to celebrate the special ocassion, but we had narrowed it down to the Seychelles or Paris. Then we thought, why not go to both?
The flight to the Seychelles was going to be very long so we thought it would be great to explore an island near the Seychelles, then on the way home stop over in Paris. We settled on an itenerary that would take us through Paris to the Seychelles Islands, then by using an open jaw we'd go to Mauritius. On our return we would fly out of Mauritius to Paris and stay there for 5 nights. Then return back to Tampa by flying through Atlanta.
Our Itinerary
Once we settled on our destinations and routings we searched the SkyTeam network for available flights and came up with the following itenerary.
Outbound Segment(s)
Tampa (TPA) > Atlanta (ATL)
Delta Airlines First Class, 2 Hour Layover in Atlanta
Atlanta (ATL) > Paris (CDG)
Delta Airlines Business Elite, 10 Hour Layover in Paris at the Airport Marriot Hotel
Paris (CDG) > Seychelles (SEZ)
Air Seychelles Pearl Class (Air France Code Share)
6 Nights at the Hilton Seychelles (Trip Report)
Open Jaw
Seycheles (SEZ) > Mauritius (MRU)
This Flight was not included in the award ticket
Purchased 2 separate $220 Tickets on Air Seychelles in Pearl Class
4 Nights at the Luxury Collection Grand Mauritian Resort in Mauritius(Trip Report)
Stopover
Mauritius (MRU) > Paris (CDG)
Air France Affaires Class, 5 Nights at the Park Hyatt Paris (Trip Report)
Return Segment(s)
Paris (CDG) > Atlanta (ATL)
Delta Airlines Business Elite, 2 Hour Layover
Atlanta (ATL) > Tampa (TPA)
Delta Airlines Business Elite
Use of a Stopover and Open Jaw
Let me provide a detailed example how we used both the stopover and the open jaw with the SkyTeam alliance. It was difficult to decide where to celebrate the special ocassion, but we had narrowed it down to the Seychelles or Paris. Then we thought, why not go to both?
The flight to the Seychelles was going to be very long so we thought it would be great to explore an island near the Seychelles, then on the way home stop over in Paris. We settled on an itenerary that would take us through Paris to the Seychelles Islands, then by using an open jaw we'd go to Mauritius. On our return we would fly out of Mauritius to Paris and stay there for 5 nights. Then return back to Tampa by flying through Atlanta.
Our Itinerary
Once we settled on our destinations and routings we searched the SkyTeam network for available flights and came up with the following itenerary.
Outbound Segment(s)
Tampa (TPA) > Atlanta (ATL)
Delta Airlines First Class, 2 Hour Layover in Atlanta
Atlanta (ATL) > Paris (CDG)
Delta Airlines Business Elite, 10 Hour Layover in Paris at the Airport Marriot Hotel
Paris (CDG) > Seychelles (SEZ)
Air Seychelles Pearl Class (Air France Code Share)
6 Nights at the Hilton Seychelles (Trip Report)
Open Jaw
Seycheles (SEZ) > Mauritius (MRU)
This Flight was not included in the award ticket
Purchased 2 separate $220 Tickets on Air Seychelles in Pearl Class
4 Nights at the Luxury Collection Grand Mauritian Resort in Mauritius(Trip Report)
Stopover
Mauritius (MRU) > Paris (CDG)
Air France Affaires Class, 5 Nights at the Park Hyatt Paris (Trip Report)
Return Segment(s)
Paris (CDG) > Atlanta (ATL)
Delta Airlines Business Elite, 2 Hour Layover
Atlanta (ATL) > Tampa (TPA)
Delta Airlines Business Elite
(Great Circle Mapper)
Maximizing the Award Value
A Delta award ticket to Europe in Business Elite would have been 100,000 Delta SkyMiles by itself, and a Business Elite ticket to Africa would have been 120,000 SkyMiles by itself. Since I acomplished visiting Paris through the use of a stop over, and visited Mauritius & Seychelles using an open jaw, the ticket only priced out at 120,000 skymiles per person. This was a fairly complex award ticket to book. I used NWA’s Japan award availability tool to find the SkyTeam availability on each flight separately. Then I called the Platinum award desk to work with the agent to find the availability and put the award together, well worth the $25 over the phone booking fee.
When we issued the award tickets each flight was selling for a little over $9,000. I achieved a point value $.075 cents per mile ($9,000/120,000 miles = .075). Pretty good value for 240,000 SkyMiles. The only drawback was that Air Seychelles doesn’t issue electronic tickets. Our entire itenerary was issued as paper tickets which made us a little uncomfortable carrying around over $18,000 worth of airline tickets throughout our trip.
Bottom Line
Using the Stopover and/or OpenJaw can significantly increase the value of your award ticket and make your vacation more enjoyable by being able to visit multiple places in proximity to your destination. Each carrier has their own rules about these types of tickets so check into your carrier of choice prior to booking.
If you have any questions about your next booking email me and I'd be happy to try to help.
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