The Hilton Aspire Card and the Conrad Maldives--2 Free Nights--Part 1

(This post contains affiliate links. You do not need to use them, but Mike and I get a few points and/or $ if you do, so thanks!)

My husband and I recently returned from an AMAZING vacation in the Maldives. We stayed at the Conrad Maldives Resort on Rangali Island, and it was truly a dream. It is now my favorite vacation spot of all time, (well, aside from Maine!) and that's saying something. Conrad is one of Hilton's Luxury Brands, and the Conrad Maldives is definitely at the top of that list. It was applauded by Time Magazine as one of the "World's Top 100 Greatest Destinations in 2018." I agree! 

You may be saying, "Yeah, only in my dreams!" And to be honest, a few years back, I would have been saying the same thing. This is NOT an inexpensive vacation, no way around it. But you know, I recently read that the average cost PER PERSON for a week at Disney World is around $1400. That means you are looking at $2800 for two people. (You can do it for less, which I blogged about here, but this is the average.) If you are willing to do the work and figure out the system, I would submit to you that you can likely save for up for a Disney vacation (or two) and go to the Maldives instead.  

Originally, I didn't seek out this resort specifically when I was searching for Maldives vacation spots, of which there are hundreds. I looked at dozens of properties. I am not brand loyal, and try to find the best value, but last summer, I signed up the for the Hilton Aspire Card from American Express, and it came with a boatload of benefits. One of those benefits is a free weekend night at almost all Hilton properties worldwide (there are a few exceptions). Hilton includes not only Hilton, but also Hampton Inn, Conrad, Waldorf Astoria, Double Tree, Curio and other properties. At the time I signed on, I earned 100,000 points when I spent a certain amount within 3 months--I can't remember now how much--but these points were enough for another free night. Then, a few months ago, Hilton was running a 35% off sale for its Diamond Members (which you automatically get for having the Aspire Card) for certain locations in Asia. When I made the connection that I could get 2 free nights combined with 35% off the next 3 nights, it sealed the deal for me.

You can click here to read all about the amazing Conrad Maldives resort--it was so fantastic it deserves its own post--but let me tell you why I think the Aspire Card is such a good deal, especially right now, and how you can use it along with a few other tips to make your own trip to the Maldives not only possible but a little less painful and a lot more fabulous! 

American Express has 3 different Hilton branded cards. The Hilton Honors card has no annual fee, the Hilton Ascend card has a $95 annual fee and comes with Gold Status, and the Hilton Aspire card has a $450 annual fee (WHOA!) and gets you coveted Diamond status. Why would anyone pay $450 a year for a credit card? Let me give you a few reasons.

1) The Aspire Card gives you $250.00 a year back on airline "incidentals." You have to choose your airline, but then you can use this toward baggage fees, meals and other charges, but not airline tickets. However, there are work-arounds on this; I have used my Aspire card (and the Amex Platinum card when I had it) to buy American Airline gift cards directly from the American Airlines website, which I then use to buy airline tickets, and I have always been reimbursed for these quite quickly, before the bill comes due. So that's $250 toward your airline tickets! 

2) You get Priority Pass membership, which gives you free unlimited admission to over 1000 airport lounges worldwide. The PP normally costs $429 annually for unlimited visits. Not gonna lie, if you only travel in the the US and don't travel often, then the lounges you have access to will be limited, but internationally, this is a HUGE benefit, especially since you can also bring two guests with you for free. Most international lounges have a decent food selection, many with a hot food buffet, along with drinks. Some have showers and we've even had a free massage here and there. There has always been free wifi. When you have long layovers, this is such a great perk. We all know how expensive airport food is. We didn't have to buy any food on our journey  to/from Hong Kong/Maldives because of this benefit. We had some very good laska on our layover at the Plaza Premium Lounge in Kuala Lumpur:

 And a great breakfast at the Plaza Premium in Hong Kong (Cheung Fun noodles make me all kinds of happy:) 

3) As I mentioned, on approval of the card, you get 1 free weekend night (Friday, Saturday or Sunday) at almost any Hilton property worldwide. This is renewed annually as long as you keep the card. You could stay, like we did, in an over the water bungalow at the Maldives: 

Or perhaps you'd like to stay at Conrad Koh Samui (bucket list!): 

Or even the magnificent Waldorf Astoria in Dubai, where we stayed for free in 2016:

The possibilities are endless, and depending on where you use your free night, this perk can be worth over $1200, as it was for us in the Maldives.

4) You get $250.00 worth of "resort credit" annually. Like the airline fee credit, this is technically supposed to be used for incidental/resort fees like meals and massages, but in reality, if you pay for your bill at the end of your stay, and you are at a Hilton Resort Property, this amount will be automatically deducted. For example, last October, we stayed at a brand new Hilton Resort in Dalian, China. It was seriously like a castle--gorgeous!

I made the reservations online well in advance. When you are a Hilton Honors member and reserve in advance, you can choose a member-only fee if you "pay now," which is always less, sometimes as much as 35%. Keep in mind though that if you cancel, you forfeit your money. In reality, Hilton puts a "reserve" on your card, but doesn't actually complete the charge until you check out. (This has been my experience anyway, on our last several Hilton stays.) So, our stay in Dalian ended up being less that $25 a night after this "$250 resort fee" was deducted, and included all our meals for 5 days. You can only use this once per year, but it would count toward your stay at the Conrad Maldives property. 

5) You get Diamond Status. I cannot give you a hard value on this because it totally depends on where you stay and what is available at each hotel, but some of the perks include: free breakfast, free wifi, free executive lounge access, free bottled water, a welcome amenity, room upgrades if available, double bonus points on Hilton spending, and the 5th night free if you use points--but only if you pay with just points. 

Let me show you what some of these perks looked like for us at the Maldives: 

Free Breakfast: There were two restaurants where you could get your free breakfast, both open from 7-10:30 each morning. The breakfast buffet at the Atoll Restaurant was incredible (breakfast at Vilu was equally nice, but not as extensive)...it even includes Champagne if you ask for it! I did not take many pictures, but there were plenty of Asian and Western options and you could custom order all coffees, fresh squeezed juices/smoothies, eggs and waffles. You can see from the picture that I love to try different fruits. Those brown pods are Tamarinds (fig/date flavor)...who knew?? I love Asian breakfasts, and tried a lot of different curries and sushi. Mike is more of an omelet guy. He also made a banana split from the ice cream bar each morning. We ate late and called it brunch! 

Free Executive Lounge Access: Conrad Maldives does not have an executive lounge. Instead, they give their Gold and Diamond members free afternoon tea and free happy hour (not B1G1F--completely free):

The "tea" was not what I expected, where you get a set amount. Rather it was buffet style at the Rangali Grill, and you could go back as much as you wanted.  The iced tea was a jasmine infused green tea which was so light and refreshing and the scones were so, so good. Other appetizers were different daily.

Happy Hour lasted exactly an hour at the Vilu Restaurant, and was not just for those who like their free alcohol, although that was included.  They also had delicious mock-tails, fruit juices and sodas:  

and a small tapas plate, which they delivered without fail toward the end of the hour.

You could have as many free drinks as you could order in the hour time frame, which was actually funny to watch. One rather loud fellow drank more Vodka on the Rocks in one hour than I thought humanly possible, and I grew up around some Maine lumberjacks who could slam back some vodka!  

Between breakfast, the Afternoon Tea and Happy Hour, we were always pleasantly full, and with the exception of a couple of "excursions," which were not required by any means, (see my other post), we did not pay extra for food. So even though the resort is not "all-inclusive," for us it was.

The Welcome Amenity: You can choose alcoholic or non-alcoholic "bubbly," and then you also get some chocolates and a fruit platter.

Room Upgrades: I read many reviews about this resort before signing up (ah, the wonderful age of the internet...) and learned that upgrades are pretty much non-existent because of the nature of the place. This is clearly stated on the hotel website. I was fine with that, and certainly didn't expect to be upgraded, especially since they allow you to use points on over-the-water bungalows and not just beach villas. I was super thrilled to be staying there at all. However, immediately on arrival, we were offered an upgrade to a spa retreat villa, about a $300 per night value, (more in my other post) if we were willing to "move in earlier and not wait until 3 pm." (We arrived at 10 am and normal check in is 3 pm.)  Ummm....does anyone turn that down?  Not this mama! We also were offered late check out, and were able to stay in our room until 3 pm instead of the normal 11 am. 

Then, 3 days later when we moved to a beach villa, we were offered another upgrade to a "deluxe" rather than a "standard" for being a "valued Diamond member."  It was double in size and had its own pool!!

I didn't ask for either of these upgrades. I have a possible theory on this. I have never mentioned that I am a Diamond member at check in. I mean, they already know that, right? So in my mind, to mention it sounds entitled and I'm sure elicits inward eye rolls.  You know, those people who start their conversation with "as a Diamond member, I was hoping to be considered for...?" Sometimes, I wonder if they give the upgrades to the people who aren't obnoxious about it? Just a thought. I haven't been in this category long enough to really test the theory, but so far, we've been upgraded without asking every time (our last 4 Hilton stays), so there's that... 

100% Point Bonus: Hilton Honor members (free to sign up) get 10 points for every dollar spent at Hilton properties, which can then be used toward free nights. Diamond members get 20 points. On top of that, if you have the Aspire card, you get another 14 points for every dollar spent at Hilton. That equals 34 WHOPPING points for every dollar spent. Let's say you spend $1500 on your week long stay. That ends up being 51,000 points. This alone could translate into 12 free nights if you stay at a lower tier property (5000 points) and use the "stay 5 nights, pay for 4" Diamond perk, which ends up being 4000 points per night. This is what we did in Bali, where a stay at the Hilton Garden Inn is only 5000 points per night. Our 5 night stay was completely free! Isn't it beautiful?

Hilton also continually runs bonus promotions. You can sign into your account anytime to see what is available. Before this stay, they were running a 2000 point per stay bonus and a "Diamond My Way" promotion. Together this equaled 3000 extra points. I should earn enough points from this stay to make our next vacation hotel stay completely free with points!

6)Amex Offers. This isn't exclusive to the Aspire card; all Amex cards come with different bonus offers each month, but I have learned that the more expensive the card, the better the offers. You do need to add the offer to your card for it to be valid; they are not automatically applied.  Right before our trip, I was checking the current offers, and there was an offer for $100 off any Conrad property stay if you spent $500 or more. I immediately added this to my card, so I expect that this will be deducted from my credit card bill. 

There are a slew of other benefits for the Aspire card, including no foreign transaction fees, 7X points for every dollar spent on airline tickets, and many more. But I think I hit the highlights. 

If I haven't convinced you that this is a good deal yet, Amex is running an offer of 150,000 bonus points if you spend $4000 within 3 months of opening the card. This is a HUGE bonus, which could be used for many, many free nights--up to 37. (Property stays range from 5K to 95K points per night, but the 5th night is free.) I don't know how long it will last....I only got 100K points when I joined...so if you are even remotely thinking about getting this card, I would highly recommend you do so before this sweet offer ends. (Only good for US citizens, I believe.)

I realize $4000 is a very large sum of money. More than some of you can or should put on a credit card, so don't even think about signing up if you can't pay it back! However, there are lots of ways to put money on a card that you may not have thought about.  Here is a great list from a travel blog I read. I routinely pay for vehicle and homeowner insurance, regular utility bills, building supplies and donations on my credit card for this reason. I have been known to pay ahead on things like car insurance just to meet a limited time spend. 

Some other ways we saved on this trip:

1) We took the bus to and from our apartment to the airport rather than hiring a taxi, saving us about $66 USD. 

2) We didn't buy expensive resort souvenirs, and there were some beautiful items at the gift shops....even I was tempted! I beach combed for shells instead: 

3) I made sure to bring to bring sunscreen, which I had to transfer into four 3 oz bottles because we only brought carry-ons. A bit time consuming initially, but sunscreen at the resort was $28 USD, so I was thankful I planned ahead. 

4) We used a budget airline out of Hong Kong, Air Asia, and chose the cheapest tickets with no meals and no checked baggage, see #3. (Hong Kong friends, I got the tickets for $387 USD, or around $3018 HKD each. This was with a layover in KL.) For many of you, especially in the US, flights will be the biggest part of your expense. Here is an article that gives you some tips on flying free to the Maldives with airline miles. (Do keep in mind that the only way to get from the airport in Male to the resort is by seaplane, which is $580 per person, and is arranged by the resort. There is no way to get that for less, so make sure to figure that cost in.)

5) Because our flight to Male arrived so late at night, we spent our first night at the Express Inn, which is about 10 minutes from the airport. I paid $100, which included pick up and drop off the next morning. I didn't get a picture of the actual hotel, but it was adequate, and also included breakfast. We could have booked a place through Conrad, but I did this on my own and saved quite a bit. There were many little shops and restaurants nearby, so it is possible to stay in the Maldives fairly inexpensively. This was our view; you can see we were near the beach. I should add here that there are plenty of places to stay right in Male, and there are a few resort islands, like Finalhohi where our friends stayed, that you can get to by ferry, which greatly decreases your transportation costs. 

6) Last but not least, I used Ebates first. If you have never signed up for Ebates, you should. As a Diamond member, you get 1% of your total back if you first go to Ebates and then click on the Hilton link. Every little bit helps. (If you use the above referral link, you will get an extra $25 and Mike will get $10:)!  

I sincerely hope this post has been helpful to at least one person. Even if you have no desire to go to the Maldives, I want to inspire you to think outside the box and reach YOUR dream travel destination!! 

Feel free to leave your travel tips in the comments! There is ALWAYS more to learn.