Bora Bora on points and miles
Flights
I used amex points (transferred to Air France, ideally when there is a 25% transfer bonus) but you could also use chase points (they also transfer to Air France). Delta recently started flying to Tahiti, so you can now book flights using Delta SkyMiles.
I used amex points (transferred to Air France, ideally when there is a 25% transfer bonus) but you could also use chase points (they also transfer to Air France). Delta recently started flying to Tahiti, so you can now book flights using Delta SkyMiles.
Air France tickets from LAX-PPT are around 60,000miles + $150 fuel surcharges per person (compare that to the $1200 price tag of these economy roundtrip tickets), or Business class tickets there, then economy tickets home for 89k and $335 a piece (these tickets are $3500 per person!). Use this trick to search the full year for those cheap 65K one-way business class seats.
Another option is to get a Capital One Venture or Venture X rewards credit cards which gives you points that you can use towards ANY travel purchase. So you could use this credit card to purchase hotel nights, flights, even food at the hotels, then you could use the Capital one points to credit you back $ on those purchases. Your spouse could do the same (double your points!).
I then used delta miles to buy a SLC-LAX plane ticket (make sure you give yourself at least 2 hours at LAX airport before your flights both there and back!). Try to get those SLC-LAX tickets for 10k miles (per person).
To book with Delta, you can book SLC-PPT, currently, there is a sale for just 54k miles roundtrip in economy. That's a great deal, the only problem is the flight home is a red-eye and doing that in economy can be rough. One option would be to check how many miles it would cost to do a one-way ticket there through Delta (which is a daytime flight), then a one-way ticket home through Air France (which is also a daytime flight). You could also see what the cost is to fly economy there and Delta-one home (currently I'm seeing 200k for that ticket, which is sale price and still quite a bit more than Air France charges to do the same thing).
If you decide to go the Air France route, you'll need to get chase points or Amex points. I recommend the Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card (60,000point sign up) or the Amex Gold Card (60,000 point sign up). Another option would be to get an Air France credit card.
Once you are in Tahiti, you can either fly on a 45min flight to Bora Bora (this costs $450 per person, or you can use chase points to book these flights through the chase portal) OR you can take a $20 quick ferry ride over to the island of Moorea and stay there instead. Both Islands are equally beautiful and have the same great activities (diving, snorkeling, atv's, jet ski's, etc.). The better resorts/OWB's are in Bora Bora though so I highly recommend going there!
Hotels
MY TOP RECCOMENDATION is to stay with Hilton, so you will need Hilton Credit Cards. Specifically I recommend that you and your spouse apply for the Hilton Aspire Card, this would give you a total of 300k points and 2 free night certificates. That will cover at least 4 nights, maybe even 5). So apply now for the Hilton Aspire Card, then after you have earned your bonus, refer your spouse to the same card (earning you additional Hilton points!). It'll take about 3 months for your free night certificate to show up in your account. So it'll take some time to apply for both cards, earn the bonuses, and get both free night certificates - but could be done and free nights booked in about a 6 month window. Once your free night certificates arrive, you have 1 year to use them. The Hilton Aspire Card has a $450 annual fee, but don't let that scare you, it comes with a free night, free daily buffet breakfast at these awesome Tahiti properties, and $250 worth of credits to use at these properties on activities, room charges, on-site restaurants, etc. Plus there is a $250 airline credit, so if you use this card to book your Delta SkyMiles ticket to Tahiti (or anywhere else) Amex will credit you back the taxes up to $250! You just have to select Delta as your airline of choice when you get the card.
Once you are in Tahiti, you can either fly on a 45min flight to Bora Bora (this costs $450 per person, or you can use chase points to book these flights through the chase portal) OR you can take a $20 quick ferry ride over to the island of Moorea and stay there instead. Both Islands are equally beautiful and have the same great activities (diving, snorkeling, atv's, jet ski's, etc.). The better resorts/OWB's are in Bora Bora though so I highly recommend going there!
Hotels
MY TOP RECCOMENDATION is to stay with Hilton, so you will need Hilton Credit Cards. Specifically I recommend that you and your spouse apply for the Hilton Aspire Card, this would give you a total of 300k points and 2 free night certificates. That will cover at least 4 nights, maybe even 5). So apply now for the Hilton Aspire Card, then after you have earned your bonus, refer your spouse to the same card (earning you additional Hilton points!). It'll take about 3 months for your free night certificate to show up in your account. So it'll take some time to apply for both cards, earn the bonuses, and get both free night certificates - but could be done and free nights booked in about a 6 month window. Once your free night certificates arrive, you have 1 year to use them. The Hilton Aspire Card has a $450 annual fee, but don't let that scare you, it comes with a free night, free daily buffet breakfast at these awesome Tahiti properties, and $250 worth of credits to use at these properties on activities, room charges, on-site restaurants, etc. Plus there is a $250 airline credit, so if you use this card to book your Delta SkyMiles ticket to Tahiti (or anywhere else) Amex will credit you back the taxes up to $250! You just have to select Delta as your airline of choice when you get the card.
So, to recap, you'll need to pay $900 in credit card annual fees for you and your spouse to get the Hilton Aspire cards, but you'll get 4 free nights, free breakfast buffet, and $500 to spend at the Hilton property during your stay. WORTH IT!!!!!
For our 2022 trip we did Bora Bora & tried out the island of Moorea as well. We stayed at Hilton properties. To do this, I referred my husband to the Hilton Aspire card ($450 annual fee). This card comes with a 150,000 point welcome bonus. I had 80k Hilton points (from a Hilton Honors card I applied for a few years ago, it has no annual fee). Once we pooled our points (which Hilton allows), we had enough to book 3 nights at any of the Tahiti Hilton properties (prices were cheaper when I booked, they are now 90-120K each night). The Hilton Aspire card also comes with an automatic free weekend night certificate that we used for a 4th night (this must be booked and used within one year). The Aspire card also got us free breakfast! Make sure to take this credit card on your trip and pay for all other meals at the resort with this card to use the $250 resort fee reimbursement that the Aspire has!
To use your free night cert., you need to find "standard award night"/120k rooms at Hilton. You can use the Hilton website to search, just make sure the "flexible dates box" is checked so you can see a month at a time and scroll through the whole year (the best availability is generally a year out, or only 1 month out). Alternatively, you can use openhotelalert.com, it will text you when a "standard" hotel room becomes available. It works fantastic! We booked the "standard" rooms at Hilton, then paid cash for an upgrade to an overwater bungalow (this can be anywhere from $300 to $400).
The standard room at Conrad Bora Bora is the "King lagoon view suite"
Or instead, you could use IHG points (so you need IHG credit cards to rack up points).
I did IHG for our 2019 trip. This post explains the 2 IHG credit cards available (there is a 3rd option if you can get the business card). You'll need 120k points (or 95k points plus cash) to book a night in Bora Bora.
Once you have collected enough points, the next step is trying to book available rooms (which can be difficult in Bora Bora but a little easier in Moorea. There really is no point in even looking at IHG availability until you are about 3 months out from your trip and then just check it every few days. More rooms seem to become available the closer you get to your trip. You can also use openhotelalert.com so that you don't have to keep checking constantly. Search for Bora Bora hotels on openhotelalert.com, then click "show room types" for the hotel you want to book, click the button that says "alert me" that is next to the standard room. The standard room (the only room you can book on points) at Thalasso is the "King Bed Jr. Suite Beach View", and the standard room at Le Moana is the "King Beach Bungalow Lagoon View".Another option with IHG Intercontinental hotels is signing up for their Ambassador Status for $200, this gives you a "buy one get one free" weekend certificate that you can use to book a couple nights. These certificates are generally very easy to use with at ANY of the intercontinental hotels. For a night in the lowest level bungalow at Thallasso, you're probably looking at $1100 (off season)- $1300 (high season), add $200 to buy Ambassador status and now you'll get a 2nd night free (or basically $650-$750 for each night). You can also buy IHG points during a 100% promotion and this would mean you're getting a room at Thallasso or Le Moana for $600 a night (120k points per night normally costs $1200, during a 100% promo you'd get 240K points -enough for 2 nights- for $1200).
We spent 5 nights on vacation which was a great amount (your flight into Tahiti is a red eye, so one night of your trip is on the plane ride). We spent our first two nights in an overwater bungalow at the Le Moana using a buy one get one free certificate. Then our next 2 nights we went to Thallasso where I was able to use our 2 anniversary free-night certificates (these free night certificates, worth 40k points, don't quite cover a night at Thallasso, usually 120k points, so you can pay the additional cost with points. You must have the IHG Premier card in order to do this). Then we flew back to the main island of Tahiti where I used points to book into the Intercontinental for our final night before flying home early the next morning.
Or you could use Chase points (chase sapphire preferred, or chase freedom, or chase freedom unlimited). This is a good option because you can book over-water bungalows directly through the chase travel portal and you don't have to worry about if there is a room available on points or not. Off season (April or May) you can get an OWB for around 50,000 points on Moorea, or at Sofitel resort on Bora Bora. So you could apply for a Chase Sapphire Preferred card (currently earning 60k points and no annual fee if you apply in a branch, sometimes Chase offers 100k for this card so you could patiently wait for that increased offer), then once you have earned the bonus, refer your spouse to the same card (earning you 20k referral points and your spouse 60K-100k depending what chase is currently offering). Now you'd have at least 140k points (chase allows you to pool your points with your spouse). That's enough to book 3 nights in an overwater bungalow room (off-season) in Moorea!
Another option is to get a Capital One Venture or Venture X rewards credit cards which gives you points that you can use towards ANY travel purchase. So you could use this credit card to purchase hotel nights, flights, even food at the hotels, then you could use the Capital one points to credit you back $ on those purchases. Your spouse could do the same (double your points!).
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