Question Getting to the Maldives from the US

[peeweediver]

Chicago to JFK to Dubai to Male. Emerates Air. Flight there wasn’t horrible. Flight home, overnight in Dubai…which was fun to walk the markets. Dubai back to JFK was brutal. Middle two seats of 4 in row in front of bathrooms so not much reclining ability and the guy next to me sniffled nonstop all 15 hours.
On recent trip to Philippines we booked the 2nd to last row which was just 2 seats. Wife and I liked that a lot. Also doing that on a trip this September. Now that remaining work earned travel miles have mostly be used for business class post retirement, we now look for the 2 seat row option always.
Good luck.

 

[pinkpony]

Traveling to the other side of the world is a long trip but let me assure you, it is totally worth it. Also curious to see the responses here since the Maldives bubbled up to the top of my list after going to Palau and meeting a few people who had been to the Maldives. The ATL-DOH-Male route sounds perfect. They have an in airport hotel in Doha so you can catch a nap and a shower on the way. I'd opt for 9 hours since I have no desire to explore Doha.

 

[pinkpony]

I agree that the long trip is worth it! Flying from Florida to West Papua was 28 hours. Next year we plan to visit Maldives. Like you we spoke with people in Raja Ampat who recommended Maldives!

 

[mattfish]

It looks like the best/primary way to get to Male from Atlanta is via Doha.

We ended up pushing our trip back to 2026 and have price alerts set up for flights. With 10 months to plan and save we hope to save a little time and expense vs trying to do it all in just a couple months.

 

[jameseg]

My wife and I flew from Minneapolis to Male last year (technically to Sri Lanka first, but effectively the same thing). It was a major anniversary, so we felt like we could justify business class. However, we have limits as far as what we're comfortable spending on flights, so we ended up flying Chicago to Male via Abu Dhabi on Etihad in business. Then we separately booked the one-hour flight from Minneapolis to Chicago (overnighted on the way out to make sure we wouldn't be late for the Etihad flight). Even with the extra ticket and overnight hotel, we saved thousands compared to what the cost would have been for a single RT ticket originating in Minneapolis.

Our Abu Dhabi layovers were about 12 hours, so we had plenty of time to leave the airport and explore, which was great - plenty of interesting sites.