How to Fly to Mauritius with Points from Australia

Mauritius underwater waterfall
Mauritius will become easier to reach when Air Mauritius restarts flights to Perth. Photo: Xavier Coiffic on Unsplash.

Mauritius is a beautiful island nation in the Indian Ocean between Australia and Africa. This French-speaking destination is a great place for a holiday, and vaccinated travellers can currently enter the country without needing to quarantine.

At the moment, getting to Mauritius from Australia is a bit of a challenge. With the direct Air Mauritius flight from Perth to Mauritius currently suspended until at least the end of October 2022, the most direct options from Australia are currently via Dubai or Johannesburg. But things will become a lot easier when Air Mauritius resumes flights to Perth!

The direct Air Mauritius service from Perth to Mauritius is currently suspended due to COVID-19, but the airline is planning to resume flights from November 2022.

From then, the Perth-Mauritius flights will operate twice weekly using modern Airbus A330-900neo aircraft featuring 28 lie-flat Business seats. The flight time is around 7-8 hours.

Air Mauritius Airbus A330-900neo
Air Mauritius Airbus A330-900neo. Photo: Airbus.

Unfortunately, Air Mauritius does not partner with any Australian frequent flyer programs. But you can redeem Emirates Skywards miles, Flying Blue miles or Air Canada Aeroplan points for a seat. On the off chance you happen to own Air Mauritius Kestrelflyer miles, you can of course redeem these for Air Mauritius flights.

Business class award availability on the Perth-Mauritius route is currently pretty good from November 2022 onwards, with up to four seats available for redemption on many dates that these flights are running.

If you have an account, you can easily search for Air Mauritius award availability using Expert Flyer. You could also check the Air Canada website.

Redeeming Skywards miles for Air Mauritius flights

According to the award chart on the Emirates website, a return Air Mauritius flight from Perth to Mauritius costs 64,000 Skywards miles in Economy or 128,000 Skywards miles for Business Class. Taxes and charges of around $600 are also payable on a round-trip booking.

To redeem Emirates Skywards miles on Air Mauritius, you would need to use the Live Chat function on the Emirates website or call Emirates.

If you have American Express Membership Rewards points in Australia, you can transfer these to Emirates Skywards at a 2:1 rate. We’d suggest confirming award availability before doing so.

Redeeming Flying Blue miles for Air Mauritius

Another possibility is to book using Air France/KLM Flying Blue miles. However, with a one-way Business Class award costing 140,000 Flying Blue miles + taxes, this is relatively poor value.

Flying Blue PER-MRU redemption
You can book Air Mauritius flights with Flying Blue miles, but the value is poor.

Redeeming Air Canada Aeroplan points on Air Mauritius

With Air Canada currently selling Aeroplan points with up to a 100% bonus available, this could be a good option if you want to book a Business Class ticket from Australia to Mauritius.

Air Canada became an Air Mauritius partner in December 2021, making it possible to redeem Aeroplan points for flights with this airline. Flights from Perth to Mauritius cost 40,000 Aeroplan points for Economy or 60,000 points for Business Class, one-way. Plus, Air Canada does not pass on the operating airline’s fuel surcharges – there’s just a CAD39 partner airline booking fee instead.

You can even add on a connecting Virgin Australia flight from the east coast of Australia to Perth onto the same Air Canada award ticket, and the total price would be 50,000 Aeroplan points in Economy or 80,000 points for Business.

Aeroplan SYD-MRU award
You can book an award ticket from Australia to Mauritius using Aeroplan points on the Air Canada website.

If you just booked a return ticket from Perth to Mauritius, the cost would be 120,000 Aeroplan points and CAD237.90 (~AU$256) in fees & taxes per person.

During the current Aeroplan points sale, you could buy 120,000 Aeroplan points for CAD4,200 (~AU$2,580) and get 120,000 bonus Aeroplan points for free. That’s enough points to book a round-trip ticket from Perth to Mauritius in Business for two passengers.

Emirates via Dubai

If you have Qantas points to spare – and don’t mind the extra travel time – Emirates also has daily flights from Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane to Mauritius via Dubai. Classic Rewards in Economy are available most of the time on Emirates, but Business and First availability is more limited.

If using Emirates, beware that the travel time is well over 20 hours in each direction.

Would you like help using your frequent flyer points?

Australian Frequent Flyer offers a personalised service that’s designed to take the hard work out of redeeming your frequent flyer points!

Frequent Flyer Concierge can help you to find the perfect flights using your points. Just let the team know how many points you have and where you would like to go, and they’ll prepare an itinerary for you.

Frequent Flyer Concierge

Having trouble finding and booking reward seats?

Our Frequent Flyer Concierge is here to help!

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 70 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.
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AC/Aeroplan has announced Air Mauritius as a new airline partner, allowing Aeroplan members to earn & redeem points on Air Mauritius.

This could be interesting when Air Mauritius eventually resumes PER-MRU flights. Currently the only potentially useful partner airline of Air Mauritius (for Australians) is Emirates.

Air Canada also recently partnered with Oman Air. It really does have quite an impressive list of partner airlines now, making Aeroplan points a particularly useful currency.

The WY partnership has got me very excited. I absolutely love their J product but I’ve always wanted to try their F product and this could unlock the door. Aeroplan points are a very useful currency indeed!

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This is super news! Mauritius is a great stopover place but premium fares - either to Mauritius only or as a stopover on the way to Europe - were very expensive.

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I was searching for award seats to MRU (ex-SYD) today on AC and it offered SYD-BNE (or MEL)-PER-MRU (on VA and MK) for 80,000 points in J but only 60,000 ex-PER. My sample date was mid-DEC - with a bit of fiddling around it seems they have flights scheduled ex-PER on Sunday and Wednesday starting in Nov.

Hope this sticks as I need flights to MRU in March 2023 - a long way off but need to keep an eye on awards so I can jump on them as soon as they are released. We will need a backup plan in case these flights are cancelled either far out or at the last moment. The only other option I can figure out is EK via DXB or via JNB - both very long and expensive options.

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I was searching for award seats to MRU (ex-SYD) today on AC and it offered SYD-BNE (or MEL)-PER-MRU (on VA and MK) for 80,000 points in J but only 60,000 ex-PER. My sample date was mid-DEC - with a bit of fiddling around it seems they have flights scheduled ex-PER on Sunday and Wednesday starting in Nov.

Hope this sticks as I need flights to MRU in March 2023 - a long way off but need to keep an eye on awards so I can jump on them as soon as they are released. We will need a backup plan in case these flights are cancelled either far out or at the last moment. The only other option I can figure out is EK via DXB or via JNB - both very long and expensive options.

Good to know Air Mauritius is releasing award seats again!

The price is based on total distance flown. Australia to Mauritius would be a "Pacific to Atlantic" award:

View image at the forums

PER-MRU is 3,663 miles so only 60,000 Aeroplan points in J. ADL-PER-MRU also just scrapes in under 5,000 miles but anything further (e.g. Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane etc.) goes into the next zone.

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Thanks @Mattg I knew it was based mileage and was planning to get a separate QF award to PER - but starting in ADL may make more sense (at least points-wise) - could just buy a cheap Y ticket to ADL - would make the fallback plan easier.

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Another follow up on this - I did a search on AC for ADL-PER-MRU and it came up with 80,000 points - I guess AC do a bit of upwards rounding

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Another follow up on this - I did a search on AC for ADL-PER-MRU and it came up with 80,000 points - I guess AC do a bit of upwards rounding

Were you able to find any dates where ADL-PER-MRU is available (without extra stops)? I'm only finding options via Singapore or SYD/MEL/BNE and PER.

There are also some interesting routings suggested (in Y only) such as MRU-VIE-FRA-SIN-ADL with a 22-hour layover in Vienna.

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I searched Dec 6 ex ADL which showed J ADL-PER then PER-MRU on Dec 7. Just to check which dates had scheduled flights I did search just PER-MRU on a couple of Sundays and Wednesdays in Nov and Dec - late date with scheduled flights was Dec 7 - First was Nov 2. J seemed to be available every day I checked. Anything ex-SYD was routed via BNE or MEL.

Like you I have seen AC offer up some very exotic routings in various searches (not just MRU) ...

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I searched Dec 6 ex ADL which showed J ADL-PER then PER-MRU on Dec 7. Just to check which dates had scheduled flights I did search just PER-MRU on a couple of Sundays and Wednesdays in Nov and Dec - late date with scheduled flights was Dec 7 - First was Nov 2. J seemed to be available every day I checked. Anything ex-SYD was routed via BNE or MEL.

Ah, I see. Well, I calculate ADL-PER-MRU to be 4,980 miles so under 5k, but it's close.

Like you I have seen AC offer up some very exotic routings in various searches (not just MRU) ...

This is made all the more interesting by the fact you can add a stopover en-route for 5,000 points ;)

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Air Mauritius has restarted its 2x weekly PER-MRU flights, and there are currently up to 9 Business Class award seats available on some flights. You can also fly onwards from Mauritius to Johannesburg, Paris or London. Plus, add a stopover in Mauritius for 1-45 days for 5,000 Aeroplan points.

This could work out to be very good value when combined with a good sale on Aeroplan points.

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