Getting To French Polynesia (Tahiti) With Miles

The first thing you need to deal with is that flights into PPT, the international airport of Tahiti, French Polynesia are very limited.  Coming from Australia, our only options were through Auckland.  People coming from North America can connect through LAX and Honolulu and people coming from Europe could connect through Paris.

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STAR ALLIANCE

Air New Zealand is the only Star Alliance airline serving Tahtiti.  You can get an idea of availability on United’s site.  I couldn’t find anything until Feb 2015 and economy class only.

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For the last year, NZ has not been releasing any seats at all between Brisbane and Auckland so even if I could have snagged a couple of rare AKL-PPT seats I would have had to pay extra to get us to Auckland.  I didn’t like that option!  Air New Zealand used to be more generous with award seats, in 2011 I redeemed business class to Rarotonga but these awards are a thing of the past.

ONE WORLD ALLIANCE

LAN is the only OneWorld member flying to Tahiti so unlikely to be of use to people reading this blog, especially since AA no longer offers RTW mileage awards.

SKYTEAM ALLIANCE

Air France is the only Skyteam member that serves Tahiti.  From Paris, one way awards start at 40,000 miles economy and fuel surcharge varies.

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From the USA, rock bottom ex-LAX seems to be 30,000 miles with 146 EUR fuel surcharge.

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The real challenge is trying to get connecting flights on Delta to LAX to hook up with your AIr France flight to Tahiti.  I tried a few random dates in late 2014 and mid 2015 using flexible dates and couldn’t find anything to use as a screenshot example.

AIR TAHITI NUI

Air Tahiti Nui serves Auckland and LAX and is a partner of both American AAdvantage and Delta’s Skymiles.  For Americans, you will face the same problem trying to get low-level award space on Delta from your home airport to LAX and Delta charges a fuel surcharge.  AAdvantage has better availability for domestic USA awards to LAX.

For Aussies, you will fly on Qantas from Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne to Auckland, then transfer to Air Tahiti Nui.  Award space was pretty good as long as you avoid holidays.  You can see Qantas award space easily using AA’s tool.

Sometimes Air Tahiti Nui availability can be searched using the Flightstats tool.

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If the systems are hooking up, you can see the fare buckets still available.  This is what it will look like using the more easily searched AKL-BNE route.  Ecomony seats are W class, business seats are I class.  More information and photos of the cabins can be found on Flyertalk.  Business seats are not lie-flat and it’s only a 4.5 hour flight so in most cases economy will be sufficient.

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HAWAIIAN AIRLINES

One last option is Hawaiian Airlines.  If you are a member of their program, you can redeem online at these award levels.

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Otherwise, Hawaiian Airlines partners with many other frequent flyer programs such as United Airlines, American Airlines, US Airways, Alaskan Airlines, ANA, Korean and Virgin Australia so you may be able to use their miles to construct an award Mainland USA – HNL-PPT.

SUMMARY

In summary, getting to Tahiti using miles is one of the most challenging awards you will ever book so you do need to plan well in advance and research your airlines and award levels.  I found the easiest option for availability to be on American’s AAdvantage program but as usual, your miles may vary!

 

Airline Alliance References – Sky Team

SKY TEAM

Aeroflot (SU)

Aerolíneas Argentinas (AR)

Aeromexico (AM)

Air Europa (UX)

Air France (AF)

Alitalia (AZ)

China Airlines (QC)

China Eastern (MU)

China Southern (CZ)

Czech Airlines (OK)

Delta Air Lines (DL)

Kenya Airways (KQ)

KLM (KL)

Korean Air (KE)

Middle East Airline (ME)

Saudi Arabian Airlines (SV)

TAROM (RO)

Vietnam Airlines(VN)

Xiamen Airlines (MF)

FUTURE AIRLINE PARTNERS

Garuda Indonesia (GA)

Sky Team is the youngest of the 3 alliances but the second largest.  They are very strong in Europe and Asia but weaker in the Americas and they have no member at all in Australia or New Zealand.  Most people who are interested in Sky Team join Delta Airlines but some people who get Ultimate Rewards via their Chase credit cards will join Korean to transfer their points to.  I am not a member of any of the Sky Team partners because they don’t serve the places I want to go very well.  Since I expect people from all over the world to be reading this blog, I would recommend you check out the program of the Sky Team member in your country or join Delta as they do have promos from time to time.

These links are also good if you want to check out an airline’s route map to see where they fly, join their frequent flyer program and see what you can do to earn miles by flying on partners, staying in hotel partners and patronizing their other partners such as credit cards, shopping malls, phone companies and survey companies.

This is a just a very brief overview of Sky Team and there is so much more to learn.  The best source of information is on FlyerTalk  where each airline has its own forum, most forums have wikis or “read this first” posts to get you started.  I will be going into some programs more in depth as the subject relates to building your ecotourism dream trip