Flying with BeOnd for your Maldives vacation? 4 things you absolutely must know before booking
Starting next July 3, the all-Business company BeOnd will begin flying between Milan Malpensa and Malé twice a week, [...]
BeOnd
Maldives
From the next July 3 the all-Business company BeOnd will begin to fly between Milan Malpensa and Malé twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
In this article:
Outbound flight times will be the same on both days, with Departure from Milan at 11:10 p.m. and arrival in Malé at 1:15 p.m, after a Refueling stop at Dubai's Al Maktoum Airport. So an overnight flight followed by one in the morning.
The best bonuses
On the return (from Malé to Milan), the flight will instead be entirely daytime, with Departure from the Maldives at 1:15 p.m. and landing in Malpensa at 10:10 p.m.. By that day, BeOnd may already have a second aircraft in its fleet, a more capacious Airbus A321.
But barring any changes in plans (and in the very short history of the company there have already been some), flights to and from Italy will be operated with the Airbus A319, namely. the same aircraft that The Flight Club had the opportunity to test on the Zurich-Malé-Zurich route..
And, based on that flying experience. here's some tips that we feel like giving to Italian passengers who plan to book with Beond for their vacation to the Maldives next summer.
What rate to choose
The first concerns the choice of tariff. BeOnd offers three, which are called Delight, Bliss and Opulence. The former entitles you to 10kg hand luggage, 40kg checked luggage and access to fast track, but not the one at the lounge.
To have that you need to choose the Bliss, which costs 300 euros more and also entitles you to choose a 'premium' seat for free (because calling BeOnd's on-board seats 'standard' would be a bit reductive).
At 600 euros more than the 'basic' rate is the Opulence, which as the name suggests offers the ultimate, including 15kg hand luggage, 60kg checked luggage, fast track, lounge, free reservation changes, free 'premium' seat choice, and chauffeur service from home to the airport and back.
The Flight Club's suggestion is that of choose the 'basic' Delight rate, so much nor the lounge at Malpensa (if it will be the Montale Hall), nor the Leeli Lounge in Malé are no big deal and, indeed, are often crowded and far from relaxing.
Best seats aboard BeOnd
Better, instead, to employ the money that would give you lounge access to Preselect one of the seats in row 1 or row 5, who unlike the others do not have another row of seats in front of them but an ottoman, which is Extremely comfortable as a space to rest your feet when the seat is spread out like a bed.
All other seats, however, offer very little foot room when the seat is spread out and in an off-center position relative to the seat, which makes sleeping uncomfortable.
Preselecting this type of chair by booking the Delight fare costs $150, or about 140 euros (100 with Bliss). In the case of flights from Milan, the purchase is worthwhile only for the night flight, the outbound flight between Milan and Malé, while for the return (daytime) flight between Malé and Milan, a 'premium' seat can 'suffice,' which can be reserved for only $25.
Onboard entertainment on BeOnd
One golden suggestion is to download an adequate number of movies or TV series or other entertainment programs to your device before leaving. We do not know whether, between now and July, BeOnd will work to enrich the content of the Ipads it distributes to passengers for Inflight Entertainment. Currently, are very poor in quantity, quality and usability (the films are all Arabic and in Arabic language).
With such an IFE. (the worst ever seen on an airplane), especially on the flight from the Maldives to Milan, which is during the daytime, it is to be hoped to have brought your cards with you and played a few games of scopa or briscola if you are in a couple or some solitaire if you are traveling, in fact, alone... Joking aside, it is better to be prepared by downloading some stuff on your device before departure, also because the A319 does not have wifi And, therefore, it cannot be done during the flight.
Amenity Kit Beond
Finally, better bring an eye mask from home (if you have it from other previous flights) because, incredibly, BeOnd's amenity kit contains none. And you know how difficult it can be to be able to sleep on an airplane where some source of light is always there.
If you are then among those who, as soon as they board the plane, take off their shoes and walk around barefoot, you had better bring extra socks from home, because even those are not in the amenity kit (nor are there slippers). Now, it is possible that between now and July, as with the IFE, BeOnd will decide to enrich the contents of its kit. But in doubt....