In today’s episode, we’ll talk about how The Standard is coming to Hyatt…(but we’re too old for it). Nick will enlighten Greg about the fact that Air France flies to French Polynesia, and we’ll talk through our recent award booking stories.
Main Event: Award Booking Stories
Watch here…
Or listen here…
Giant Mailbag
(0:01:24) – A correction about the Delta Business Gold card (with a $150 hotel credit, not $200 as mentioned in the episode).
(0:02:23) – Would a speculative Discover Miles card be worth it for the 3x everywhere for the first year, with the chance that those all become transferable to C1 miles when the merger goes through?
Card News
(0:08:05) – Greg acquired Smartly 4% card, downgraded Chase Sapphire Reserve, and got approved for Chase Sapphire Preferred
(0:20:06) – Citi Rewards+ may be achievable for some
(0:22:54) – Cardless removes one card per lifetime limit
(0:24:10) – Qatar cards increased offers
Crazy Thing 1 and Thing 2
(0:29:54) – Rakuten’s shopping portal has a great new trick | Coffee Break Ep55 | 5-5-25 (Earn Amex and Chase cards at once)
Check out the coffee break episode 55 here.
(0:34:52) – TPG: “Chase Sapphire Preferred vs. Amex EveryDay Preferred: A $95 annual fee showdown”
Awards, Points, and More
(0:37:57) – Hyatt integration of The Standard
(0:43:15) – Air Tahiti bookable via Flying Blue
(0:47:19) – Nick: Hilton free night extendable
(0:50:43) – Gondola no longer requires access to your email
Main Event: Award Booking Stories
(0:52:09) – Greg: Booked premium cabin flights to Japan for his son
Read more about this trip here.
(1:01:28) – Nick: Booked unexpected trip to Bora Bora
(1:18:54) – Greg: Booked lie-flat round trip to London for 3
Question of the Week
(1:34:28) – Why do people choose to do all this work for travel rather than just cash back?
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Music Credit – “Ocean Deep” by Annie Yoder
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Greg,
Sorry if this should be obvious or something I should know, but why don’t you put your travel on your CSP now that you no longer have the CSR? Are the points multipiers that much worse, or the trip protection that much worse? I thought the CSP protections were pretty decent….
Thanks and take care.
I stayed at Bora Bora St. Regis for my honeymoon about 18 yrs ago….very nice and tranquil property, and got overwater bungalow during our stay!
Re: French Polynesia interisland flights. Air Moana launched a few years ago and pushed down the prices on the routes they fly. PPT-BOB is now typically in the $300s roundtrip. Air Moana has free changes (we did one recently, easily online). Important note for families, both domestic carriers offer substantially discounted pricing for children (for Air Moana it’s 40% off). Note too if you’re flying to more than one destination, Air Tahiti’s passes can be a great deal. All said, the instances where the Air France 15k one-way awards are going to offer acceptable CPP are going to be limited, but if they have availability for some of the more expensive destinations (like the Marquesas and Australs) their could seem real gems out their.
Update: I did some searching around on Air France for Air Tahiti interisland flights. Notes: 1. Pricing actually ranges (not fixed 15K as suggested): PPT-MOZ 6K, PPT-HUH 11K, PPT-RFP 12K, PPT-BOB 15K, PPT-RGI 16K, PPT-TIH 26K, PPT-FAV 28K, PPT-RUR 30K, PPT-TUB 30K. All have $35.90 in fees/taxes. 2. Prices seemed to be fixed by route. 3. Availability seems to be limited to a single passenger, when available. 4. Found availability on only a minority flights. 5. I didn’t do a price comp for every search, but where I did I often found the CPP to be below 1.0 and I didn’t see anything above 1.5 CPP. 6. I didn’t find any availability for Air Tahiti’s most expensive routes to Marquesas and Gambier islands.
I was hoping there were some gems out their as I’d love to plan a trip to French Polynesia using points for the expensive interisland flights, but this seems like a big flop on the whole. Sad.
Correction: some flights do have more than one seat available.
As opposed to Air Tahiti Nui.