Starwood Preferred Guest - Honeymoon Help in the South Pacific

Hello everyone,
I am a newbie here to the FT boards but have been lurking around reading about all of the wonderful ideas that everyone has posted. This place is fantastic!

I am wondering if any of the pros and veterans of the FT community can help me to come up with a nice set of honeymoon plans. I am planning to get engaged this year and to go next year, so I have a lot of time still to get everything set up.

I have purchased 50 subs to IF and not yet converted the points but would like to travel to the south pacific and stay for about a week in nice accommodations. If anyone has any other cool suggestions on what to do with the points I would greatly appreciate any input.


Thanks,

Jonho

Thanks for the reply and the suggested properties, departure point is Washington DC

I am not statused on any airline.

[This message has been edited by jonho (edited 06-

The South Pacific is vast and glorious. Tahiti is the first thing that comes to mind - and for a very good reason. It's fantastic as a destination. My wife and I hit it last year for our summer vacay.

While Starwood has a hotel on the main island in Papeete, and also on Moorea and Bora Bora, there are other islands there you shouldn't rule out. Check out www.tahiti-exporer.com (http://www.tahiti-exporer.com) for a good overview on the entire French Polynesian.

From the US, you can only fly directly there via Los Angeles on Air France(DL partner) or Air Tahiti Nui(AA Partner). That's about an 8-9 hour flight. Or, you can fly via Honolulu on Hawaiian.

Many hotel reviews and discussions here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum74/HTML/003195.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum74/HTML/003349.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum74/HTML/003805.html

Enjoy!

[This message has been edited by PHL (edited 06-26-2002).]

Since you have time, you should check the board for details on different credit cards for airline and hotel points. In particular, the Starwood Amex card is fantastic for earning hotel awards, and has no annual fee the first year, only $30 after that. The Hilton cards (an Amex and Visa) are both free, and give large bonuses for initial purchases.

Starwood points can convert to airline miles, too.

You may also want to consider Bali. Not strictly the South Pacific but a beautiful place and considerably less expensive than Tahiti. Sheraton Laguna at Nusa Dua has some very nice honeymoon suites. I just stayed in one -- albeit alone!

Bali also lends it self to some easy and inexpensive stopovers that may interest you and your new bride such as Singapore and Thailand.

BTW, congratulations!!! Once you tell her where you have planned the honeymoon, she is sure to say YES. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

Have to concur with Bali, although I stayed at the Grand Hyatt. Beautiful, friendly people and inexpensive. Also stopped in Singapore which would give you a taste of a city. Very long flight though.

Congrats!

From what I've heard Tahiti is particularly unappealing.

Supposedly there isn't much to do in the Tahiti archipelago....I've heard people say that Hawaii is far better a place to go.

If youve never been to Hawaii you may want to consider 1-2 nights in Waikiki followed by 3-4 days in Maui or Kauai.

You have enough miles to fly you and your wife business class + hotel for a week. Your best bet is to convert your starwood points into Qantas miles because of the favorable rate (2:1).

Cool, Thanks to all of you for the responses so far. This Qantas deal certainly looks appealing, though I am a little bit confused by how the awards work with the kilometers and round trip awards. In the mean time, I am probably going to sign up for an SPG card and try and get enough hotel stays in for platinum for the honeymoon.

I think she will go for either bali or fiji so thanks all for the heads up on Tahiti.

I've seen some of the reviews on other boards for those hotels but if anybody has any flight recommendations or specific ones to go to, pls post or email me.

Thanks,

Jonathan Ho