A couple of days ago, I saw a note from The Flight Deal saying that round-trip flights from San Francisco (SFO) and Los Angeles (LAX) to Rarotonga could be had at the beginning of 2027 for as low as $660, a great deal for such a remote destination.
Poking around a little bit more, I found that it was an even better deal than I anticipated. The $660 price isn’t limited to SFO and LAX, but also applies to almost any major West Coast airport, including San Diego, San Jose, Oakland, Portland, and Seattle. Not only that, but one-way flights to Rarotonga are only $350 and can include layovers in Honolulu and/or Maui at almost the same price.
These aren’t basic economy tickets, either. They’re main cabin with checked bags, seat selection, full miles earning, and upgrade eligibility. The round-trip can be found on Amex Travel, so if you have a Business Platinum from American Express® and Alaska is your selected airline, you can get a 35% rebate when you redeem points for the flights, so they’ll cost you ~23K points for the one-way or ~43K for the round-trip.
This is an incredibly niche opportunity, but there are some fun aspects to it, so let’s dig in just a bit.
The Deal
- Round-trip flights from the West Coast to Rarotonga, Cook Islands (RAR) from $660 on Hawaiian/Alaska Airlines. One-way tickets TO Rarotonga start at $351.
- Main cabin
- Flights TO Rarotonga can be booked with an overnight layover in Honolulu OR one night in Maui and one night in Honolulu
- Can be booked on Amex Travel with Membership Rewards; includes a 35% rebate if you’re a Business Platinum cardholder and Alaska is your selected airline
- Dates as of writing include:
- Outbound ($351-$383 one-way)
- January: 6-8, 13-15, 20-22, 27-29
- February: 3-5
- March: 3-5, 10-12
- Return ($660-$713 round-trip)
- January: 9, 16, 23, 30
- February: 6, 13
- March: 6, 13, 20
- Outbound ($351-$383 one-way)
Rarotonga (with a stopover in Hawaii)
Most folks either forget or don’t realize that Hawaiian had an interesting international network from Honolulu, including Australia, New Zealand, Japan, American Samoa, Rarotonga, and Kiribati. Normally, these are all much better deals using points, as the cash fares are astronomical. This is an exception.
There is one flight per week, going from HNL to RAR on Friday night and returning Saturday afternoon. Neither flight is a red-eye, making it a much more approachable option in economy.
On its own, $660 round-trip or $350 one-way is a great deal. In fact, I booked a prospective trip for my wife and me doing just that. We used $1,300 in wallet funds for the two of us and, because of our Titanium statuses, will earn ~54,000 redeemable points and 22,000 status points; we also can select premium economy seats at booking and are waitlisted for lie-flat first-class seats on both legs.
On the outbound, it’s possible to book a ticket for nearly the same price on Wednesday and Thursday. The Thursday flights make an overnight stop in Honolulu:
The Wednesday flight makes an overnight stopover in Maui, then continues on to Honolulu the next evening, makes another stopover, then flies to Rarotonga on Friday evening:
This justifiably isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but both options allow for an evening and a good chunk of the next day exploring one or both Hawaiian islands for just a few dollars extra, which could be a great way to break the journey, especially for someone who’s never been to Hawaii.
If you want to use points, both the one-way and round-trip options are available via Amex Travel at the same price as direct from Alaska, albeit without the option of the Hawaii stopovers:
If you have a Business Platinum from American Express® and Alaska is your selected airline, you can get a 35% rebate when you redeem points for the flights, so they’ll cost you ~23K points for the one-way or ~43K for the round-trip.
Combining Rarotonga and Tahiti
Rarotonga seems like a terrific destination in its own right. It’s much cheaper than French Polynesia (Bora Bora, Tahiti, etc), has a fraction of the visitors, and is known for marvelous beaches, people, and snorkeling/diving.
However, there are also some possibilities to make it the first stop of a longer trip. Here’s a look at the current flight options from Rarotonga, courtesy of Flight Connections:
There are only four countries with direct routes: Honolulu, Tahiti, New Zealand, and Australia.
Tahiti is the closest and, while it’s only a ~2 1/2-hour flight, it’s expensive: around $300 each way. Worse, as far as I know, there’s no way to redeem points for the flights.
However, there are many more options to connect from Papeete, Tahiti (PPT), to both sides of the ocean, including Air Tahiti Nui’s PPT-Los Angeles flight, which is bookable via Alaska or AA. Alaska is the better deal, at 30K in economy or 60K in business (AA is 40k/80k):
This the second potential trip that I booked. Seattle to Rarotonga for $350 in wallet funds on the way out, spend a few days in the Cook Islands, then onto Moorea for a five-night stay at the well-regarded Hilton there for 380K Hilton points, then to LAX in business class on a points redemption for 60K Atmos points.
Rarotonga and Australia/New Zealand
There are also options to continue on to both New Zealand and Australia. Air New Zealand flies direct from both Auckland and Christchurch, and each destination can be booked for ~21K each way using Avianca LifeMiles, ~22K using United MileagePlus, or ~15K using Air Canada Aeroplan.
Partner awards on Air New Zealand are tough to find in advance, and much easier to book closer to departure. Right now, during the promotional period for these Hawaiian flights, there are many more options to Rarotonga than from Rarotonga, and Aeroplan seems to have the best availability.
Air New Zealand also flies to Australia, but the non-stop routes are via JetStar. The best way to book a JetStar award is with Qantas Frequent Flyer. Prices range from 15K-23K each way in economy, and availability is pretty good, although again heavily slanted in the Australia TO Rarotonga direction:
Qantas is a 1:1 transfer partner of Amex, Capital One, Citi, and Rove, so it’s fairly easy to get the points.
Final Thoughts
Again, let me emphasize that this is a very, very niche opportunity. I’m thrilled and plan to take at least one of the trips that I booked next year; there will undoubtedly be a few other folks who are probably in the same boat (or plane, as it were). However, it’s not easily done for the vast majority of those reading this.
Still, I thought it was a good opportunity to poke around at some of the secondary and tertiary possibilities; if nothing else, it hopefully provides some tasty food for thought when similar opportunities arise.
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Even though this is niche – it can often give you a different booking perspective and ideas.
So while I playing around to see if an excursion to RAR was feasible.
I ended up changing all our original bookings then rebooked better more direct flight back on UA (as well using bothP1/P2 UA Quest cards annual 10K award discounts). Freed up P2s 25K GA disc.
As much as try to avoid flying around the major Holidays. I did move or trip up and IMHO Xmas/NYD falling before a weekend – is slightly better than MLK day on a Monday – esp since PPT seems to have the lowest priced flights on Sat/Tues.
So now were using the 25K AS award for a PDX-HNL RT for 20Kpp for our daughters wedding have until sometime in March to rebook if it drops more – but honestly locking in pricing its one less wedding expense. I can also PC my Summit card to BofA CCR no AF card in September – I already moved all my miles to P2 account.
I was taking advantage of the MLK Holiday. Mulling the Alaska Global Getaways 40kpp PDX-MAD RT for a 4 day day weekend (MLK) in Madrid (Also have an EDIT credit that will freed up – was using it for bday when the Ritz Portland had 2.5x Points Boost). But might might be better to sit on our remaining miles till Dec or March depending on when P2s next 25K CP discount posts (can’t get a clear answer from the two AS CSR I spoke with.
Esp since PDX-AMS is a similar but about 6hrs shorter direct daytime (PDX) flight (since your skipping the JFK leg. I have seen award flight sales for 40K R
Also just saw the FM post about the SEA-EU for 37.5K RT – but PDX-AMS on KLM is better 9.35hr flight
This might be niche, but I love this kind of content. I had wondered if there was a good way to combine various south pacific island destinations or if it was too unrealistic.
That is indeed niche.
Separately, but related, be aware booking these South Pacific flights for early 2027; this projected super El Niño peaks right during these January-March travel months. Some of the severe weather abnormalities are expected across these routes, including elevated tropical storm risks for Hawaii, significantly higher cyclone risks and coral bleaching for Rarotonga and French Polynesia, and extreme droughts if you connect in Fiji. Not saying to not go, but, I think comprehensive travel insurance that covers weather disruptions is wise. Fitting since FM just posted on that topic, recently.
What do you mean by “wallet funds”?
Probably cashed out amex flight credits on AS over the years resulting in AS wallet funds aka flight credits
If you book a flight on Alaska and cancel more than 24 hrs later, you get the refund deposited into your “Alaska wallet”, with expiry date of 12 months from the original booking date.
From Rarotonga I highly recommend going to Aitutaki, at least on the day trip organized through air Rarotonga if not for a few days.
You mention AirNZ flying from RAR to NZ and JetStar flying to Australia, but JetStar also flies an RAR-AKL flight.
Also Hawaiian no longer runs the Kiribati route. Fiji Airways now does it as NAN-CXI-HNL-CXI-NAN once a week.
Where will you stay in Rarotonga? There aren’t any points hotels are there?
I did’nt see any Chain hotels with points.
But if you have CSR (with points earned pre-10.2026 then the Chase options would be worth1.5cpp – but from a cursory checking of prices they seemed to be more expensive that other options on same properties – didn’t do serious comparison.
But checking Cap1 and Amex -they also have options – but would rather spend that time on Maui than the Cook Islands -but definitely may consider on our next trip to NZ – love the day flights. We did that coming back from (AU/NZ/FIJI trip) Fiji to Samoa then Samoa to Honolulu – day flights similar to the PDX/SEA to HNL to RARwith layover in HNL
Places with Air Con are definitely much more expensive.
We stayed in Fiji March 2024 during a heat wave high 90s low 100s high humidity – Island was in the doldrums – no breeze off the ocean – we stayed at the Hilton – even with AC and ceiling fans it was quite miserable experience -esp trying to sleep.
As @1990 said they are projecting “super El Niño peaks right during January-March 2027″
We are already booked on AS for Hawai’i and Bora-Bora/Moorea during the dates and even found 1W PDX-RAR for 35K and then PPT-PDX for 42K pp ( we have two 25K Summit discount so 45K & 60K if we decided to proceed. I would hate to be on the hook if we missed checking in at Conrad Bora-Bora – almost dealt with that with multiple nights at Mallihouna ($2.5K cash avg per night with taxes/fees) last January during the Snow-IcePocalpyse when places like PVD got 36” of snow and there were 20K flgith cancellations that weekend had two backup flights books (also cancelled – booked Delta PDX-ATL-SXM last minute 4 hours before departure. Yes its YMMV with award bookings and no-show -even for weather.
My sister is in Rarotonga now. Getting there was a disaster though. Her first flight from the west coast to Honolulu was quite delayed, just she just missed her connecting flight to Rarotonga. Unfortunately, Hawaiian only has one flight per week, and my sister only had one week of vacation. Hawaiian didn’t do much to help her. She booked an alternative flight to Rarotonga via Tahiti at her own expense (and arrived more than a day late) and will try to will to get it sorted out with travel insurance when they get back home.
Why would Amex travel preclude the Hawaii stopover option? Is a stopover part of the published fare? If so, Amex can do it. You may need to call.
They have it, but it’s priced significantly higher than via Alaska.
I think I’ve seen something like this before, where Amex travel will show something not quite right on the web site. If you’re not seeing what the Alaska site is showing, definitely call. Hopefully they can see the right thing on the phone.
Did you get the AS titanium status from spend?