Hi,

Coming from Tahiti, I have a bit of experience for travelling there...
From Europe and France in particular, Air NZ fares used to be cheaper than Air France... some time ago. But the journeys were horribly longer, with a first correspondance in London then in LAX with horrible connecting times. It is not true anymore: there is fierce competition between all carriers and do not dream, you will not find cheap/discounted tickets... But by travelling outside of summer holidays you have good chances of getting great fares.
There is little/if no competition between european markets... so you should try to fly from germany... as you will not save much by travelling to another country, except if you are very close to CDG.
3 options:
Air NZ effectively drops LAX-PPT and PPT-RAR-AKL from April 2007, but LAX-PPT will become a code share with Air Tahiti Nui. PPT-AKL will be codeshared and operated by Both ATN and ANZ.
source http://pidp.eastwestcenter.org/pirep...r/10-26-19.htm
So from Germany, 3 options I think:
Try ANZ: Frankfurt-LAX and LAX-PPT(will be operated by ATN): phone them for a quote... they might not have the codeshared price in the system so you could get a cheaper fare by booking now...?

Try Air France (CDG-LAX-PPT): they have stupidly cheap fares sometimes... the cheapest being from CDG, although most of the time even ex-europe flights are very cheap: for example I live in London and the AF fares are nearly the same ex LHR than they are ex CDG or TLS (Beautiful city in the south of F, more taxes to pay though) for example.
Try Air france France and German websites.

At last, contact ATN: they will give you their best prices anyway.

Allemagne / Germany

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My favourite is AF... because of the nice aircrafts (i'm excited about the new B777-300 and A340, although I will regret my B747-400...) and most of all because of Flying Blue... as it enables me to retain Gold status and to get 20 000 miles with just one trip!
Then ATN, great service and airbuses but crap miles...
Then ANZ: old planes, such bad connections in LAX... and with the new codeshare LAX-PPT on ATN, i guess no miles on my BMI diamond club card gold!!

Hope what i wrote makes sense...