Yes, I have a trip report on this route, since someone asked. It was a last minute flight, booked after I canceled a trip to Japan on Hawaiian, which I wound up re-routing to Papeete instead, just a few days in advance.

I went from OAK--> HNL --> PPT --> HNL --> SFO

I'd been to French Polynesia before, and I had taken UA to LAX to PPT for about $1,200. This time, I paid something like $1,800 for the tickets, but again, this was a few days in advance; it was basically the same price as the ticket to Japan had been.

This is not an inexpensive part of the world to travel to, although there are ways to travel hack it. However, the flight isn't really one of them. It's the most remote land mass in the world.

You cannot still stopover in HNL for 24-hours that I know of, but if you're heading to French Polynesia, Honolulu may not be as exciting (I used to live in Hawaii and am not bashing Honolulu, for the record). We wanted to do that when we booked the Japan flight in the first place and weren't able to.

So, a trip report. Easy check-in at OAK about two hours before flight. Fine customer service, a bit scattered on the phone but very helpful, even with complicated situations like mine was. I am a Hawaiian Airlines member and am used to their service, which helps. The flight there was totally uneventful, with a 4 hour stopover in HNL in the afternoon, arriving in very late to PPT, which is standard for most carriers, I think. They basically open and close the airport in PPT, depending on when flights are heading out. The food was okay, some kind of curry dish. The in-flight entertainment was fine, although they charge you.

Coming into PPT at night is always a little disorienting because it's a bit seedy that late, and the cab ride is on the costly side even though it's a fixed fare. Most people probably go right to the Intercontinental and leave to wherever they are really going the next day (few people stay in Tahiti because it doesn't have great swimming, snorkeling, etc.)

The one thing that makes HA a bit rough on the "coming into PPT" part is that it only flies on Saturdays, and Sunday in Papeete is a complete and utter ghost town. There were only two restaurants we found open on the main drag.

We stayed overnight in Papeete and took the ferry to Moorea the next day. But that's probably not the part people are wondering about. We stayed about two weeks and saw a few islands on Air Tahiti, at any rate. It's pretty gorgeous.

So I will skip ahead to the rest about HA leaving out, which was much more arduous and one of the worst flights ever because of screaming babies combined with monstrous turbulence, which this route is well known for (the ride down from HNL was quite placid). All of the carriers, I believe, leave out at 11:00pm-ish, back to back, so be sure to arrive at the PPT airport 3 hours in advance to stalk the lines. We arrived 4 hours in advance because I wanted to not stand in lines, if possible, which worked even though everything was shut. PPT also has no bar, which is not my favorite thing about it. It's not quite the dive people describe it as, actually it's relatively nice once inside, but it's cramped with people getting onto three international night flights -- Hawaiian, Air Tahiti Nui, and Air France, I think?

So Saturday night, we departed, arriving in HNL at 5:15am without so much as 15-minutes of sleep due to crying babies and serious turbulence and no drinks before the flight. I vaguely recall some food service when we first got on and getting a drink on the plane.

Our layover was until 1pm, so we slept in HNL on some vacant couches for a few hours, had breakfast, walked around, had lunch, had drinks, and got on the flight to SFO.

HA is fairly slow, in my opinion, about getting your luggage off the plane, so when we landed in SFO just before 9pm after a smooth, uneventful flight where we had upgraded to comfort seats (which was nice and provided much more leg-room and a general sense of more space; I used HA miles to pay for this), we had a 9:30 airporter to catch which we nearly missed.

I am not sure what more to say although again, I really appreciated Hawaiian's phone customer service in helping assist me through a very complicated flight switch involving a new flight date, refunding HA miles from a previous first-class upgrade to Japan, rebooking the flight, and upgrading again with the miles, and never getting grumpy or impatient or giving up.

The previous flight that I had taken was, as mentioned, SFO --> LAX --> PPT and back, and it was a complete disaster, although that was UA's fault and not Air France's, which was the LAX --> PPT portion. I thought Air France was quite nice as well, although this was a long time ago now.

Some people mentioned that Hawaiian doesn't always fly this route and sometimes cut it and then reinstate it, but that it often is for French Polynesians who want to go shopping in Honolulu, which was pretty evident with peoples' giant boxes of things compared to other carriers. At any rate, I say go for it. I thought it was nice to have a stopover (although that second one was kind of brutal, but then I almost never sleep on planes no matter how tired).

Also, we each got a free 50 lb. checked bag, although I cannot recall if that's because I am an HA member or not?

Good luck and enjoy French Polynesia!

Ask me about Air Tahiti anytime. I've flown it quite a lot now too.