Cubiscus

Flew this last year for just under $990, following the fare a couple of times afterwards it just kept going up. Think you've got a good deal.

rubbernyc

Flew HNL-PPT-HNL earlier this year for $956 and watched the prices for +/- 4 months from the dates and that is about the lowest price.

navatwal

I am looking to purchase 2 x First Class Fares from Tahiti (PPT) to Hawaii for our return back from vacation.

My travel is in Dec 17 and i have been monitoring fares since late Jan, fares have consistently been over and around the $1500 mark.

Are there likely to be any sales or discounts to this destination or Premium Fare sales?

I cant find any reward availability either, only for fares in coach....

Also I have been told by HA stopovers over 24 hours are not free therefore wil
Need to pay for an extra fare purchase from Hawaii to the Bay Area taking the total to around $2200 each which is crazy!

As i have plenty of time wanted to understand how and when i can get some savings on this ridiculouly expensive route.

Any tips are greatly appreciated!

azj

HA only flies from PPT once a week and there is likely lots of holiday travel that month. Supply and demand and individual market forces drive fares, so that is likely why you're seeing what you believe are high fares. This is likely also why you can't find award travel on this route.

As for stopovers, I believe that stopovers are free. I was playing around on their website and did a "multi city" search for fares from PPT to SFO with a stop in HNL for a few days and there was no extra charge. I priced a domestic itinerary as well and there was no extra free for stopover.

Looks like fares one way in premium cabins from PPT-HNL are $1764 per person and $2500 PPT-HNL-SFO. This is for flying from PPT on December 16th. Flying earlier in the month, will get you cheaper fares.

Flexibility will be key, if you want to find cheaper fares. Other than watching the fares like a hawk, your hands are likely tied.

Rifleman69

Yep, it's one flight in and one flight out per week on Hawaiian. Have Alaska Miles so it was either getting us to HNL or to LAX to get on a flight to PPT and the wife immediately poo poo'd Air Tahiti Nui when she saw the business class pricing for that route.

So HA Extra Comfort it is! Flights dipped at the beginning of the month and I received vouchers for future travel from Hawaiian so in the end, it's not that expensive.

To each their own.

navatwal

I called Hawaiian airlines and they said only 24 hours stopover is free.

This is pricing i received whihc backs that up:

PPT - HNL - $1550
PPT - SJC - $1850
PPT - HNL - SJC $2300

If a free stopover was allowed the price should be in the $1800 - $2000 range.

Does anybody have any verbage confirming the free longer than 24 hr stopover?

azj

I'm seeing the same price differences as well, I'm just going by a multi-city search I did on the website, which you should do yourself, so you can see the numbers in-front of you. There was no additional charge that resembled a "stopover charge." I can't find any reference to a charge for stopovers in the list of fees, or in the two rules that describe stopovers. If there were indeed a charge, I'd hope it was listed and not "hidden" somewhere. Seems frustrating, so I hope you can find a fare you're comfortable with!

msp3

Any trip reports for HA on this route?

asu-ua772

None I've seen...other than two free checked bags for all passengers Tahiti is provisioned identically to the West Coast flights, so if you've flown HA to/from the West Coast before you are getting exactly the same inflight service.

edcli

I did this flight 2 years ago. Outbound only w/ a return to LAX on Air Tahiti Nui.
It was an A330 and very uncrowded. Plenty of space.

I don't remember fares to be expensive other than one way [which I was on] so I used points.

As I stated very uncrowded flight and plenty of space. It's also pretty short too.

747FC

If 5 hours, 55 min. is short...

Rifleman69

it's a shorter flight than heading to LAX, just all depends on where your final destination is. If we go back to Tahiti, I'd fly through HNL again. Pay for the extra comfort seats if you can, helps on the red eye coming back.

wanderingstar

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.

navatwal

Many thanks for the detailed trip report.

I am flying out for a vacation to French Polynesia in Late November with my wife and a 1 yr old infant.

Flying out via LAX with AF and back with HA with a stopover in Maui.

I noticed your comments regardng turbulence on this route? Is it always that bad?

Both my flights are night flights and with sleep a priority I wanted to manage expectations for my family.

I have flown back from HNL to SFO on a red eye once and I recall a lot of turbulence but is their a specific reason why there is a lot of turbulence to from PPT and is there a specific season / month when it is more worse?

Troopers

Since you offered

Next March, our red eye LAX-PPT on AF is scheduled to arrive early morning, ~ 5:30am and we'll go straight to BOB to IC Le Moana. Do you think we'll make the 8am flight if our flight arrives an hour late at 6:30am? Or should we book the 10am flight to BOB? Is Air Tahiti customer friendly if we book the 10am flight, and want to change to the 8am flight if we arrive in time (assuming seats are available)? Of course, rather not wait at PPT if we don't have to.

On the way back, we have an morning flight at ~7:30am from PPT to LAX on AF. We'll arrive back to PPT from BOB the night before and stay at IC Tahiti.

Any other comments/suggestions? Thanks.