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Greg noticed this morning via Seatspy that there is some decent business class award space for 2 or more passengers over the next several weeks between San Francisco and Papeete (Tahiti), French Polynesia. Some dates even have speace for four passengers. If you’re looking to escape the winter, this could be your ticket out.
The Deal
- United has some saver award availability between San Francisco and Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia on select dates throughout the rest of this month and into March 2023
- Best options for booking include:
- United MileagePlus for 72,200 miles each way
- ANA Mileage Club (an Amex transfer partner) for 120K round trip + ~$400 in taxes & fees fees
- Air Canada Aeroplan (An Amex, Chase, and Capital One partner): 55K miles each way
Quick Thoughts
The availability here isn’t exactly widespread, but here’s a look at 2 or more passengers in business class in February / March.
As you can see, availability isn’t quite “wide open”, but if you’re looking for an escape from the winter, it’s a possible ticket to paradise. I know that time period may include a break for President’s Day (or President’s Week as it is celebrated in my state) and perhaps some early spring break dates. Availability for four passengers was more sparse, but not nonexistent.
These seats are of course available directly via United Mileage Plus at 72,200 miles each way plus taxes ($5.60 on the way there and about $50 on the way back). Your best bet is Air Canada Aeroplan at 55K miles each way plus taxes.
I’m not sure why the outbound comes with $73 CAD in taxes and fees. Air Canada adds a $39 CAD partner booking fee, but that still seems a bit high on taxes (though the mileage savings more than makes up for it). Aeroplan allows a stopover on a one-way award for an additional 5,000 miles, but in this case I don’t think you’d be able to take advantage of it. You can’t have a stopover in North America (so no stopover in San Francisco on the way to or from). The only other Air Canada partner serving Papeete airport would be Air New Zealand, but it looks like they only fly to Auckland a couple of days a week and I didn’t see any award availability (even in economy class).
You presumably could start elsewhere in the US and connect in San Francisco, though remember that Air Canada charges more based on distance.
If you have miles stranded at ANA, you could use 120,000 ANA Mileage Club miles round trip, but this is one of those strange routes where United has surcharges and ANA passes them on, so the total taxes and fees come to almost $400 for a single passenger.
An advantage there may be adding connecting flights to and from San Francisco without additional mileage cost.
Keep in mind that if you are ultimately looking to get to Bora Bora, you’ll need another domestic flight on Air Tahiti (the domestic-only carrier, not to be confused with Air Tahiti Nui, which flies to the US and partners with American Airlines) from Papeete and that flight can not be booked with airline miles, though I did book mine through Chase Ultimate Rewards years ago to use points at 1.5c per point. You should also be able to buy your ticket and then use Capital One miles to erase the purchase at a value of $0.01 per mile (assuming the purchase codes as travel).
If you have some extra time, it can be worth looking into multi-island tickets with Air Tahiti. My recollection is that a multi-island ticket did not cost much more than I’d paid for a simple round trip to Bora Bora, so it may be worth looking into that possibility.
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I originally booked Air Tahiti Nui economy coming back from PPT on Qantas miles, but now I just booked 3 business class on United using Aeroplan miles, thanks Nick and Greg! Now I have to figure what to do with my Qantas miles.
For comparison what does Economy cost in points for each way?
On a couple of routes on UA I have seen AC add more then just the 39 CAD booking fee (for example ewr-bru and ewr-lhr) nothing to high, its just interesting to note..
Was able to snag 7 nights at the St Regis Bora Bora over the holidays though weren’t sure how we’d get there and back. Tried on a whim last night and snagged 2 biz class seats PPT-DEN on Air Tahit Nui and AA using 80k AA miles each. Was shocked because we’ve been looking and seeing nothing for months at a time. Seems that they had just opened the schedule for that day so got lucky on the timing of when I looked.
Now we hope to get lucky again as we still need to book our outbound for Dec 22/23.
Hey Nick, not seeing much coverage of this so trying to get a handle what’s happening. Are you seeing anything about Plastiq no longer accepting Amex cards? I haven’t received an email indicating this but people are sharing screenshots of ones they’re getting.
I received one today and it says my payment of condo fees that was processed today will be canceled next week. Its quite strange and my attempts to use chat function to resolve this have not led me anywhere.
Aeroplan started charging C$26.4 since sometime last year as “US Tax Recovery Fee” on all award flights to and from US, regardless of the airline you fly. They dubbed it as charges they previously used to eat but have now decided to pass on to the customer since that’s what they have to pay the government. Ironically, that charge doesn’t get classified as taxes (despite Aeroplan claiming its taxes) but is grouped under transportation charges. A pure money grab by Aeroplan, if you ask me.
I think these US transportation taxes might be triggered because the $39 partner award fee makes it a ‘revenue’ ticket on which those taxes are payable instead of a free ticket?
That can’t be it since they charge this fee even on awards entirely on AC metal, where you don’t pay the C$39 partner booking fee.