Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
If you recently got in on the deal to book former top-tier former Starwood properties for 60K per night (or 48K per night with a 5-night stay…see: Booked: St. Regis Bora Bora for 48K / night) and you’re having trouble finding award flights, you’ll want to check out sale fares from United out of San Francisco, with economy class fares available on select dates from $625 round trip nonstop for travel through March.
The Deal
- United is offering round trip nonstop flights between San Francisco and Tahiti from $622 round trip on select dates between October 2018 and March 2019
- Direct link to Google Flights to search for more dates
Quick Thoughts
Use Google Flights to find dates with cheap pricing. Note that the cheapest prices appear to be separate tickets, with the outbound ringing in around $380 and the return around $245 — booking it as a single round trip raises the price by about $140, so you’ll want to book the legs separately. Google Flights initially showed a price of $622 on a round trip search, but upon clicking through it showed separate tickets and a combined cost of $625.
I did not find these flights cheaper via SkyScanner or Momondo when searching round trip, though it looks like you could save a few bucks buying just the outbound via Momondo.
I clicked through on that one and it does appear bookable. Personally, I think I’d pay the extra $23 on this one and book directly with United rather than risk having a problem getting to Tahiti (while your trip to Europe is easy to salvage with miles if a low-cost OTA causes a problem, it could be considerably harder to salvage the trip to Tahiti if you run into an issue at check-in).
Availability isn’t amazing, but it’s not terrible if you have some flexibility, with the cheapest prices generally available on Sunday, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.
Overall, this looks like a great deal if you don’t mind taking the flight in economy class. It should even be bookable via the various credit card portals, which could present a particularly good value at a cost of 41K-50K round trip depending on your card/portal. I’ve already booked my tickets to and from Tahiti (and it falls outside the timeline of this seasonal United flight), otherwise I might have been tempted to book three seats via this sale on Ultimate Rewards points and had a row to ourselves to create a DIY business class for 125K total round trip.
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[…] a post highlighting a great deal on nonstop round trip flights between San Francisco and Tahiti. Those flights only cost $622 and we thought at the time that the deal would be […]
[…] class, it might be worth keeping an eye out for airfare sales. We recently published a sale from San Francisco on United for just over $600 round trip (since expired). That would be something just north of 40K Ultimate Rewards points round trip if […]
Sweet deal. Hopefully UA going head to head with French Bee on this route will keep fares low going forward.