So helpful!! Are you a Marriott Elite? Did they provide breakfast for rooms on points? How about the transportation to the resort? And lastly, what did you guys do for 5 nights ?
Hey Daniel! Yes, we both hold Titanium statuses with Marriott. The property will provide you comp breakfast for up to 2 daily, even if you stay using points. You just need to choose the breakfast option over points for your welcome gift. Sea plane transfers cost about $600 rt, and it's mandatory! We haven't stayed there yet, but will definitely share with you when our trip comes up in June.
Thanks my friend. i am bookmarking this series for the future reference. Thanks for the great tips. You always deliver the quality content with great information and tips for the viewers. Great video as usual. Thanks for sharing and i am looking forward to your upcoming videos.
Thank you so much for your lovely comment! We just always use these amazing deals and we were hoping that we can share this with more people! Hope people can enjoy!!
Thanks Mitch! We really appreciate the comment and the support! We post 2x a week so hope you tune in. We also have over 100 videos for you to watch in case you're waiting for newer videos :) We do hotel tours, reviews, flights and miles, and so much more! How did you find us? If you want to connect we are also on Instagram!
Wow thank you so much for your lovely comment! Please be sure to subscribe and check out more of our videos! We post 2 a week and just posted a new video!
Thanks for letting us know your tips, guys! Logging this one away and looking at the calendar for when we can get ourselves to the Maldives... mmmm... looks nice.. Looking forward to more tips with Bernard!
Thank you so much! I hope that you find this information helpful!! We want to keep sharing this as we have deals we use all the time, but it's good for others as well!
Great video and series Bernard. You lay it out so all can take advantage of this wonderful opportunity. Looking forward to many more outstanding video and hiden secrets in vacation traveling opportunities. THANKS SO MUCH!
The Maldives looks amazing and I LOVE the shirts! Big fan of this idea. We're going to looking at a lot of tips and tricks for international travel soon.
Some day we would live to make it to the Maldives ❤ you shared some great tips. There are more options to help make a trip like that more affordable than I was aware of. Thanks for sharing!
YEAHH!!! Get your free stay! Get your free miles! All the beer that you guys drink and all the food you eat, you can put on a credit card and get 3x points!!! Get on it if you haven't yet.
We seriously want to travel to the Maldives 😍 we love a good deal! These are some great tips. One question. Are these points systems available for people from any country?
Yes you can do this from any country bEside the credit card But be aware if you are not a loyal Marriott Elite Member you have to pay for breakfast etc and this is very pricy
Hey Sarah and Marek! Don't we all? So to answer your question - yes, specifically for the Marriott Bonvoy program. It's a loyalty program that is free, and anyone globally can sign up to earn and spend the points for free hotel stays. But if you don't have a credit card program in your country, or a local bank that is a transfer partner of Marriott, you have to earn points the traditional way, which is to stay at hotels to earn points. Maybe you can share where you are from, and I can help you look to see if there are any possibilities for you to earn bonus points really quickly, without the need to stay at Marriott hotels to earn the points needed for the Maldives.
Howard is correct - And to get free breakfast and upgrades, you will need to earn higher level status such as Platinum and above in order to enjoy the free benefits.
@Sweethideout - You can still sign up for a Marriott Bonvoy account to earn and spend points. But in order to earn 140k points just by staying in Marriott hotels will take you a longggggg time.. Even if you stay on top of promotions to earn you promo points, it will take a lot of Marriott hotel stays and a few months. The reason why we suggested credit cards is because, just by signing up and earning the bonus - the reward is instantly transferred into your Marriott Bonvoy account. So it's very little work to accrue a lot of points or certs for the free stay in the Maldives in a short period of time.
This was a fab video! Thanks for this. I would LOVE to go to the Maldives but always thought it was rather unattainable because of how expensive it is. But will have to keep these tips in mind next time we are on that side of the world! Maybe this dream can actually become a reality. Thanks!!
Good presentation. In France we don’t have cc deals. In Portugal they have one which is interesting to cumulate points and get price reduction. They have deals in the US and it is interesting for people who travel a lot.
Thanks Nadelina! Yea, it's unfortunate that credit companies work very differently in Europe. There are still major banks in Frances that have points where you can transfer to Marriott as a travel partner, it's just not as lucrative. But at least you can earn points with daily expenses, instead of travel spending.
wow this is great, i feel sad to cancel my tour this coming june, because of travel/document issues. anyway, i hope to visit someday. your video always very useful and helpful. always keep safe friend
Yep, any private island resorts within the Maldives comes with a hidden fee of paying for a seaplane transfer. The Le Meridien charges $450 roundtrip per person on the seaplane (adds up to $900 for 2 people just to get to the resort and back), which isn't even affiliated with the resort. So essentially you have to for that extra ticket to the monopolize Trans Maldivian Air to get to your resort. Apart from that, the stay at the resort is still free!
@@exploreaswego I just wish there was more info/photos about the resort. Either way …for the amount of points paid compared to the other resorts, I’m ok “rolling the dice”.
Looking into this, awesome video Bernard! Learnt a lot. Really considering it. And there’s two of us that use the strategy. Does the 3 free night Certs avail to any Marriott bonvoy hotels? Resorts? Other than the new Meridien ?
Thanks Mark! So the 3 free night certs from the JP Morgan Chase card is capped at 35k points/night. So that means, any Marriott resort or properties that cost more than 35k points, you can't use the cert. But any Marriott hotels around the world that cost 35k points or less, you can use the cert to redeem the free stay. You can do a quick search on the Marriott website and see all the available Category 5 hotels (@35k points cost). I believe you guys are based in NZ, unfortunately there aren't as many lucrative programs as compared to the US. But your only option is to sign up for the AMEX platinum card that can earn you Membership Rewards Points (Which is AMEX points), after you earn those points, you can transfer those points in a 1-1 ratio to Marriott, then redeem your points for a free stay. So you and Carina both if stacked for the AMEX platinum card, that's 200k points total, enough for about 6 nights at the Le Meridien Maldives. You can see all the transfer partners with AMEX NZ here.. And I see Marriott as 1 of them. www.americanexpress.com/en-nz/rewards/membership-rewards/travel/all The only downside is, the card is really expensive to sign up for the annual fee at $1250/year. www.americanexpress.com/nz/credit-cards/platinum-card/?intlink=nz-en-nz-platinum-seo-benefits-cta There is also the lower Platinum Edge card that earns you 20k bonus, at $149 annual fee/year. It's not as lucrative overall. But if you use it frequently enough for daily spend, such as supermarkets which is x3 points per dollar, you can save up to 140k points on everyday expenses. Hope this helps!
Nice video I already found this out 2 weeks ago and booked accordingly As I am titanium breakfast Is included I would have told all the new free travel hunters that if they don’t have an elite status they need to pay for breakfast and I expect that to be 100 usd for 2 easily Plus lunch or dinner
Yeah! You are correct! It was released a couple weeks ago. We never usually make videos like this as it takes time, but we wanted to try it out! We booked for December are are Titanium as well! We should have included food though which would have been a great idea! We also made videos of our St. Regis Experience! Have you stayed there before?
@@exploreaswego awesome I do respect videos like this and I can imagine it takes lots of time, thats why maybe I never tried to do one haha :-) nice that you booked December so you also got an amazing deal. We have in December planned Marriott Nai Yang in Phuket but not sure if we can still travel there... thailand is currently everything unsecure now but I hope it so much as I miss the great food :-) Thats why we try our luck end of september and hope not for too much rain and after we do a stop in Abu Dhabi. I love the Grand hyatt there and also the st. regis abu dhabi are amazing :-) there at least the sun will shine 100% :-) We never made it to the maledives but the St. Regis was always on my wish list. But I thought with this le Meridien offer I would try this for the first time and if we like, we can still go higher next time :-) Cat 5 in Maledives is something I have never seen and I assume this won't stay long, for sure next year it will get Cat 6 or even 7. I will watch your st. regis video now to get a maledives feeling :-) I think as long as we as titanium get at least sunset overwater villa and maybe even with private pool, there is nothing to complain on this trip :-) Take good care and stay safe and have some nice viatnamese summer rolls for me please ;)
Thank you so much for your comment! We hope you can use this promotion! Bernard is originally from Singapore too! We use Singapore as one of our home bases because it's so perfectly located! Hope you have a lovely day
So helpful!! Are you a Marriott Elite? Did they provide breakfast for rooms on points?
How about the transportation to the resort? And lastly, what did you guys do for 5 nights ?
Hey Daniel! Yes, we both hold Titanium statuses with Marriott. The property will provide you comp breakfast for up to 2 daily, even if you stay using points. You just need to choose the breakfast option over points for your welcome gift. Sea plane transfers cost about $600 rt, and it's mandatory! We haven't stayed there yet, but will definitely share with you when our trip comes up in June.
So this is the first 'Deals with Bernard'? Good to see where it all started! Very impressed that you guys work points to the extent you do!
It was! We are seeing if it is worth keeping up. Not getting as much traction as we'd like.
Love this new series!! We love getting tips and sharing tips like this!! Great work Bernard!!
Thank you so much! We really appreciate your support!
Exactly what i was going to say 😂 I need to watch and rewatch to totally understand how it all works but so glad you're finally making these vids 🧡🧡
Maldives are on my bucket list. Thanks for this informative video! Cheers!
Thank you so much! We are so happy you enjoyed our video! We hope to keep making helpful videos like this!
@@exploreaswego You definitely should 😉 You’re welcome! Take care!
Thanks my friend. i am bookmarking this series for the future reference. Thanks for the great tips. You always deliver the quality content with great information and tips for the viewers. Great video as usual. Thanks for sharing and i am looking forward to your upcoming videos.
Thank you so much for your lovely comment! We just always use these amazing deals and we were hoping that we can share this with more people! Hope people can enjoy!!
Hey guys - new to the channel! Loving the videos so far, keep it up!!
Thanks Mitch! We really appreciate the comment and the support! We post 2x a week so hope you tune in. We also have over 100 videos for you to watch in case you're waiting for newer videos :) We do hotel tours, reviews, flights and miles, and so much more! How did you find us? If you want to connect we are also on Instagram!
@@exploreaswego cheers guys!!
Was looking up the St. Regis in the Maldives as a vacation spot and stumbled on your channel….and sure glad I did!!
Wow, this a very useful new series. Thank you, Bernard, for all the deals and posted links! We will follow you closely!
Thank you so much for your lovely comment! We just posted a new video and more episodes of Deals with Bernard will be coming out soon!
Yet another great vlog guys. I'd love to visit Maldives one day. So beautifully captured and edited. Cheers guys😊
Thank you so much! If you have any questions on how to do it, let us know!
Beautiful footage! Keep up the excellent work! 👍
Wow thank you so much for your lovely comment! Please be sure to subscribe and check out more of our videos! We post 2 a week and just posted a new video!
Thanks for sharing your information and Maldives looks fantastic ! By the way, I love your shirt 😉👍
Thank you for your lovely comment! I hope that you can go visit there one day! it's super beautiful!
Thanks for letting us know your tips, guys! Logging this one away and looking at the calendar for when we can get ourselves to the Maldives... mmmm... looks nice.. Looking forward to more tips with Bernard!
We hope to keep sharing because we find so many great deals and we usually use it for ourselves, but we can now share with you guys
I do really enjoy your video, informative and getting better each day...
Wow! Thanking you so much for your support! I hope you are doing okay!!!
The smart way to travel! Great vlog! :)
Thank you so much! I hope that you find this information helpful!! We want to keep sharing this as we have deals we use all the time, but it's good for others as well!
@@exploreaswego Yes, really helpful! Thank you! :)
Great video and series Bernard. You lay it out so all can take advantage of this wonderful opportunity. Looking forward to many more outstanding video and hiden secrets in vacation traveling opportunities. THANKS SO MUCH!
Thank you so much Gary! We love sharing and are so grateful you enjoy the video! Bernard has more plans to share more of his tips soon!
The Maldives looks amazing and I LOVE the shirts! Big fan of this idea. We're going to looking at a lot of tips and tricks for international travel soon.
Oh Wow! Thank you so much! Make sure you get the right CC and get those points and miles up!!
Some day we would live to make it to the Maldives ❤ you shared some great tips. There are more options to help make a trip like that more affordable than I was aware of. Thanks for sharing!
YEAHH!!! Get your free stay! Get your free miles! All the beer that you guys drink and all the food you eat, you can put on a credit card and get 3x points!!! Get on it if you haven't yet.
@@exploreaswego right?! we would rack up those points quick!
So amazing. Deals with Bernard! YEAH!! I'm still planning a Maldives trip one day. YAY!
Thank you so much! You should get those miles and points so you can go do this one day!
this is such a great series concept! thanks for sharing such valuable info!
Of course! We just want to share the deals that we find because we always use them for ourselves and SO many people can benefit.
Pure paradise! I love Maldives! You have a new subscriber! :)
Wow Thank you so much your lovely comment! Have you been there before?? We posted over 6 videos about the Maldives you should check out
Your tips are really amazing!
Thank you so much!!! We hope you found it helpful!!! Many ways to get the most out of your travels!
Great tips guys!! This was so informative! We definitely need to start taking advantage of credit cards with points.
You need to! If you need any help personally, please do not hesitate to let us know!
We seriously want to travel to the Maldives 😍 we love a good deal! These are some great tips. One question. Are these points systems available for people from any country?
Yes you can do this from any country bEside the credit card
But be aware if you are not a loyal Marriott Elite Member you have to pay for breakfast etc and this is very pricy
@@howardhetflejs3266 beside credit card? Hmm 🤔 so not possible for New Zealand 🇳🇿
Hey Sarah and Marek! Don't we all?
So to answer your question - yes, specifically for the Marriott Bonvoy program. It's a loyalty program that is free, and anyone globally can sign up to earn and spend the points for free hotel stays. But if you don't have a credit card program in your country, or a local bank that is a transfer partner of Marriott, you have to earn points the traditional way, which is to stay at hotels to earn points. Maybe you can share where you are from, and I can help you look to see if there are any possibilities for you to earn bonus points really quickly, without the need to stay at Marriott hotels to earn the points needed for the Maldives.
Howard is correct - And to get free breakfast and upgrades, you will need to earn higher level status such as Platinum and above in order to enjoy the free benefits.
@Sweethideout - You can still sign up for a Marriott Bonvoy account to earn and spend points. But in order to earn 140k points just by staying in Marriott hotels will take you a longggggg time.. Even if you stay on top of promotions to earn you promo points, it will take a lot of Marriott hotel stays and a few months.
The reason why we suggested credit cards is because, just by signing up and earning the bonus - the reward is instantly transferred into your Marriott Bonvoy account. So it's very little work to accrue a lot of points or certs for the free stay in the Maldives in a short period of time.
Nicely put across and some wonderful shots. Keep safe 👍🙏🌈
Thank you so much! You guys are so nice!
This was a fab video! Thanks for this. I would LOVE to go to the Maldives but always thought it was rather unattainable because of how expensive it is. But will have to keep these tips in mind next time we are on that side of the world! Maybe this dream can actually become a reality. Thanks!!
Thank you so much for the love! If you haven't signed up for credit cards, I highly recommend it! Get Miles Get Points and get free holiday!
Good presentation. In France we don’t have cc deals. In Portugal they have one which is interesting to cumulate points and get price reduction. They have deals in the US and it is interesting for people who travel a lot.
Thanks Nadelina! Yea, it's unfortunate that credit companies work very differently in Europe. There are still major banks in Frances that have points where you can transfer to Marriott as a travel partner, it's just not as lucrative. But at least you can earn points with daily expenses, instead of travel spending.
@@exploreaswego thanks 🙏🏽
Ohhh we like "Deals with Bernard"!!!
Thanks so much for the support! We appreciate it! Stay tuned for more to come!
Good one! I'm not into all that points stuff, but if you have the time like you guys! This is great! 😁👍 ATB
Yes! It's part of what we do and we love sharing with everyone!
🌎 Excellent adventure! Beautiful views! We lovely! Greetings! Have a nice week! 😁✌
Thank you so much! We hope you have an amazing week as well!
Thanks for the tips Bernard.🐸
Thank you for checking us out!! Always appreciate your support!
Thank you for sharing nice video good opinions 👍
You are very sweet to say that!
wow this is great, i feel sad to cancel my tour this coming june, because of travel/document issues. anyway, i hope to visit someday. your video always very useful and helpful. always keep safe friend
I'm so sad you had to cancel your tour!!! Hope you were able to rebook it for a later time! We just posted a new video so I hope you can check it out!
Though the night is free, they are charging 900 USD for taxes (that includes transport). So not a really free deal.
Yep, any private island resorts within the Maldives comes with a hidden fee of paying for a seaplane transfer. The Le Meridien charges $450 roundtrip per person on the seaplane (adds up to $900 for 2 people just to get to the resort and back), which isn't even affiliated with the resort. So essentially you have to for that extra ticket to the monopolize Trans Maldivian Air to get to your resort. Apart from that, the stay at the resort is still free!
Being in Europe even if I cannot benefit from it I thing it’s great to make these deals videos.
Thank you! For everyone to get points, there are many ways to do it. Might just be a little easier from USA.
Omg, you guys are amazing,
Aw, Thank you so much!! You are so sweet to us!!
Thanks for info! Just booked this hotel on points! 35k per night. Talk about steal!
That's awesome! Thank you so much for your comment! We hope to push out more deals soon to share with everyone!
@@exploreaswego I just wish there was more info/photos about the resort. Either way …for the amount of points paid compared to the other resorts, I’m ok “rolling the dice”.
Looking into this, awesome video Bernard! Learnt a lot. Really considering it. And there’s two of us that use the strategy.
Does the 3 free night Certs avail to any Marriott bonvoy hotels? Resorts? Other than the new Meridien ?
Thanks Mark! So the 3 free night certs from the JP Morgan Chase card is capped at 35k points/night. So that means, any Marriott resort or properties that cost more than 35k points, you can't use the cert. But any Marriott hotels around the world that cost 35k points or less, you can use the cert to redeem the free stay. You can do a quick search on the Marriott website and see all the available Category 5 hotels (@35k points cost).
I believe you guys are based in NZ, unfortunately there aren't as many lucrative programs as compared to the US. But your only option is to sign up for the AMEX platinum card that can earn you Membership Rewards Points (Which is AMEX points), after you earn those points, you can transfer those points in a 1-1 ratio to Marriott, then redeem your points for a free stay. So you and Carina both if stacked for the AMEX platinum card, that's 200k points total, enough for about 6 nights at the Le Meridien Maldives.
You can see all the transfer partners with AMEX NZ here.. And I see Marriott as 1 of them.
www.americanexpress.com/en-nz/rewards/membership-rewards/travel/all
The only downside is, the card is really expensive to sign up for the annual fee at $1250/year.
www.americanexpress.com/nz/credit-cards/platinum-card/?intlink=nz-en-nz-platinum-seo-benefits-cta
There is also the lower Platinum Edge card that earns you 20k bonus, at $149 annual fee/year. It's not as lucrative overall. But if you use it frequently enough for daily spend, such as supermarkets which is x3 points per dollar, you can save up to 140k points on everyday expenses.
Hope this helps!
Nice video I already found this out 2 weeks ago and booked accordingly
As I am titanium breakfast Is included
I would have told all the new free travel hunters that if they don’t have an elite status they need to pay for breakfast and I expect that to be 100 usd for 2 easily
Plus lunch or dinner
Yeah! You are correct! It was released a couple weeks ago. We never usually make videos like this as it takes time, but we wanted to try it out! We booked for December are are Titanium as well! We should have included food though which would have been a great idea! We also made videos of our St. Regis Experience! Have you stayed there before?
@@exploreaswego awesome I do respect videos like this and I can imagine it takes lots of time, thats why maybe I never tried to do one haha :-)
nice that you booked December so you also got an amazing deal. We have in December planned Marriott Nai Yang in Phuket but not sure if we can still travel there... thailand is currently everything unsecure now but I hope it so much as I miss the great food :-) Thats why we try our luck end of september and hope not for too much rain and after we do a stop in Abu Dhabi. I love the Grand hyatt there and also the st. regis abu dhabi are amazing :-) there at least the sun will shine 100% :-)
We never made it to the maledives but the St. Regis was always on my wish list. But I thought with this le Meridien offer I would try this for the first time and if we like, we can still go higher next time :-) Cat 5 in Maledives is something I have never seen and I assume this won't stay long, for sure next year it will get Cat 6 or even 7.
I will watch your st. regis video now to get a maledives feeling :-) I think as long as we as titanium get at least sunset overwater villa and maybe even with private pool, there is nothing to complain on this trip :-)
Take good care and stay safe and have some nice viatnamese summer rolls for me please ;)
I just realized that AMEX has a Bonvoy Card and that Chase isn't the only game in town (since Chase banned me - LoL)
GET ON IT!!!!!
Добрый день 😊 👍 🤝
Thank you so much for the love! Checking you out again!
wow super beautiful
Thank you so much for your comment! We hope you can use this promotion! Bernard is originally from Singapore too! We use Singapore as one of our home bases because it's so perfectly located! Hope you have a lovely day
My name is Tinesha and I love deals too - LoL
OMGGG HAHA you are so funny! Love it and JOIN THE CLUB!