flyermich

Expecting to take a honeymoon in late 2015. Currently top choices are either Tahiti or Fiji. We would be flying from either DTW or ORD/MDW. Would like to take First or Business.

I am able to put expenses for a family business on personal cards. Before I started looking at signup bonuses more carefully, everything had been going on a family AA card, which has about 1.2M miles on it.

I signed up for a CSP, Ink Bold, and Arrival+. By this time next year I expect to have ~250k UR points and ~150k Arrival+ points.

If I need to make any adjustments to my strategy I suppose now is the time. Any suggestions for what airlines/transfer partners to focus on for those destinations? I tried looking for reward availability to Fiji on the AA and I could find nothing.

erik123

I'd go for Fiji uing Alaska Airlines miles. You can view availability online. Another idea is the Cook islands using Air NZ from LAX- they have good fares in business though it is not a veyr good business class product on this route. You could combine either with New Zealand or Australia if you have time. New Zeealand would be worth it and maybe even more romantic/special then the Pacific Islands. Haven't been to Tahiti (my wife has) but outside of the resorts there is nothing much to see and people aren't overly friendly to outsiders.

Fro Alsak - get their credit card (4 for 2 people) and add starwood for transfers. Should net you 150k for signing up.

farbster

how long do you have for your honeymoon?

flyermich

Too soon to say.. 10-14 days?

SanDiego1K

Here's a thread about using AA miles to get to Tahiti.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...es-2012-a.html

Your big challenge in French Polynesia is the cost of hotels. You can identify the chain properties using awardmapper.com. First, put in Tahiti to see the hotels on the island of Tahiti and Moorea. Then, put in Bora Bora to see the chain properties there.

flyermich

Thanks for that information. I was considering using the Hilton signup bonus of "two weekend nights anywhere" on one of their level 9 or 10 resorts in French Polynesia, and maybe VRBO for the other nights.

farbster

I've not tried to use AA points for FP, but if it turns out to be too difficult and you're really wanting to use points, you should consider flying on Cathay using your AA points. I believe you can check using BA's website. We just flew them from HKG-EWR and biz was really nice.

Connecting through HKG opens up a lot of places I would imagine (Thailand, Vietnam etc.).

Just something to think about.

SanDiego1K

To clarify, Cathay flies to Fiji but not Tahiti.

farbster

I was making a suggestion in case they wanted to go somewhere else other than their original destination...Say the flights to either of their original destinations are too difficult to get on points, then I was suggesting using CX to connect in HKG for other places...

mikelat

Realize that with AA miles they are pretty tight on allowed transit for award tickets. Goings through HKG would almost certainly end up costing 2 awards (US-HKG + HKG-Fiji).

farbster

Didn't realize that. Thanks!

Jailer

Which is why you might hedge your bets and, for maximum flexibility, get a Starwood Amex card. If your 1.2 million AA miles don't get you where you want to go you can transfer 20,000 Starwood points = 25,000 miles to a carrier that works for you. And, you can use Starwood points for honeymoon-class hotels in Bora Bora and Tahiti (the old Starwood Moorea property is now a Hilton).

flyermich

Unfortunately I can't use Amex for our business expenses.

I'm currently evaluating Hotel cards, but it looks like the ROI is just way lower than the other cards I have.

SteamyUncle

Regarding hotels, I would have a serious look at IHG as well, as Bora Bora carries two seriously honeymoony IC's, Thalasso and Moana, that usually have availability for 50000 points a night.

With the current "Into the Nights" promotion, depending on the offer you get, you and you partner might be able to get 100000pts or 4 nights(probably dicier availability wise though) fairly easily.
If you add to that one or two IHG Rewards credit cards and one Ambassador certificate, you might be able to scoop up a few nights on the cheap.

mikelat

I've not gone yet, but in 2 months I'll be at the IC Thalasso. Some friends said it was amazing. If you can book far enough in advance and have the points, the award booking would be a great route. I actually just used Costo travel and had them book the hotels and inter-island air transfers. Used my AA miles and luckily found business seats on TN LAX-PPT and return. I used ExpertFlyer to search for the seats and then called AA EXP desk to book them.