Thanks, but in relation to the chains--Hilton, IC, or SW--which one would require the highest surcharge on an award stay?

This has been a fantastic thread. Has anyone looked into trying to create Tahiti as a (free) stopover between the U.S. and New Zealand (or Australia)? I imagine you can do the <24hrs things, but was hoping for a 3-4 days.

Upgrade to OWB
 

I can only comment on my experience. Booked 4 nights Hilton Moorea on an AXON stay using 145,000 points under the old system. Our stay was in late June of 2013. I contacted the hotel via e-mail and inquired as to what the cost would be to upgrade from the garden unit to an OWB. I was told that as a Gold member (thanks to a credit card opening) that I was already upgraded at no cost to a deluxe garden unit and therefore the cost to upgrade to OWB would be about $125 a night. I grabbed that and it was great.

I don't know what the cost would be to upgrade at the Hilton on Bora Bora.

In July 2013, the upgrade costs that I was quoted for awards were:
Hilton Moorea:
Deluxe Garden bungalow 6 000 XPF
Lagoon Bungalow 10 000 XPF
Overwater Bungalow 17 000 XPF
Panoramic Overwater 19 000 XPF
Garden pool suite 19 000 XPF

IC Moorea (there are only a few true OWB):
Standard Beach Bungalow : 5 000 CFP / per night
Garden Pool Bungalow : 8 500 CFP / night
Premium Beach Bungalow : 11 000 CFP / per night
Standard Overwater Bungalow : 15 000 CFP / per night
Premium Overwater Bungalow : 20 000 CFP / per night

IC Bora Bora:
* from 2 Bedroom Coral Garden to Emerald overwater villa 15,000 XPF + 14% taxes per night
* from 2 Bedroom Coral Garden to Sapphire overwater villa 25,000 XPF + 14% taxes per night
* from 2 Bedroom Coral Garden to Diamond overwater villa 35,000 XPF + 14% taxes per night
* from 2 Bedroom Coral Garden to Diamond Otemanu overwater villa 45,000 XPF + 14% taxes per night
* from 2 Bedroom Coral Garden to Diamond End of Pontoon overwater villa 55,000 XPF + 14% taxes per night

I highly recommend Hilton Moorea for an overwater bungalow. So many tend to try to save and get a garden bungalow here and then an overwater in Bora Bora, but Hilton Moorea has great snorkeling right off the overwater bungalows. It's very easy for first time snorkelers to learn how to snorkel since it is shallow. Many overwater bungalows in BB have little to no coral near them (especially the ones out on motus on east side of BB). If you get a Hilton Surpass credit card you become Hilton Gold and will get an upgrade and free breakfast daily (saves you $60 a day for 2 in food cost). So, if you pay for an upgrade to overwater and you present your gold card upon checkin they will do their best to give you an even better overwater bungalow view. I've also been to IC Moorea. The true overwater bungalows are in deeper water. The water color there is dark blue. There seemed to be more French staying there than at the Hilton (maybe they advertise in France more). It is also a nice property, but the snorkeling at the Hilton is better in my opinion. I also like the crepes bar out at the overwater bungalows at the Hilton Moorea. I wish the Hilton Bora Bora had that!!

Double Check
 

Would like a double check of my work and any suggestions for points for our trip to FP.

Her:
DL 30,517
AMX MR 56,910
Citi TY 38,069 (earning around 15-18k/mth w/ VR/BB)
UA 5,631

Mine:
DL 54,382
Amx MR1 80,565
Amx MR2 52,363
Citi TY 338,071
UA 21,971


Current line of thought
Airfare: Get Her 65k more AmxMR/DL points , transfer MR -> DL and book biz class on AF LAX->PPT(150k each). Will figure out another award or just pay IAD->LAX

Hotel: TY looks to have free transfers, so transfer Hers to His and book Hilton Moorea through CITI TY travel redemption (seems better redemption than transferring to HH), cash upgrade to OWB. Also I'm HH Gold.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

my first thought without having time to think of anything else is:

BURN those citi TY points ASAP! I burn all mine each statement and never let em sit.
Call me scared but I dont wanna get stuck with a shut down and losing all of them.

Next you may wish--unless you have the cards already--to apply for the chase suite...

Ink plus, ink bold, sapphire. That will give you each 50,50,40k ur. AND get the UA explorer visa for 30-50k more. transfer the UR to UA and you have enough miles to get around with United. OR transfer to something else in the UR world. Or find a friend with MR who will like your UR... there are ways, and I aint sayin more on that one here or elsewhere.

AND if you have time, assuming you are into MSing, get the Hilton Surpass card. spend $40k in GCs at grocery store and MO them. Now you is diamond.
Then again I dunno if that matters.

I got my OWB @ moorea dropped from $120/night to $60/night for the week of christmas by going to Gold

I don't know if there are any added perks to diamond, but I am shooting for diamond to see if I can snag free upgrade to Bora Bora Hilton, but from what i've read, you have better luck @ moorea

although, for $60/night, it was a hard offer to pass up and risk a free upgrade

yeah I will agree that in some cases Gold and Diamond are not much dif. And yes, $60 per night to upgrade is fine.

just thinking in terms of someone who has a lot of TYP... they probably do a lot of MSing already. So yeah, but yeah

Unfortunately i earned the large balance of TY the old fashioned way(mtvU(Forward) and something else (eventually forced into premier) over years before i started taking a harder look at all this. The TY on Hers is light MSing (enough to cover normal monthly expenses through bluebird) My hope is that since the MSing is on Her card (not joint) the large balance on mine is protected.

that chase suite is more than enough points to book the iad-lax RT.

Thanks for the insight.

Tahiti
 

For those trying to use miles in my limited experience it is tough. We traveled in June 2013 and I made the air exactly 330 days in advance using expertflyer to determine availability. It looked like ATN opened up 2 business and 6 coach seats for AA miles each flight. Our outgoing flight was on the date I wanted but we had one extra day on the return as the flight was not available.

That's why my stash of AS and HA miles are becoming very valuable. Availability with AF is pretty good in Y. I just looked at some dates in March and April and there is availability one or two flights a week. Yes you can use your DL miles as well but you have the flexibility of doing one-ways with AS and you redeem at a lower redemption rate than DL. I was looking at using 12.5K BA miles to do LAX-OGG on AA. Spend a 3 or 4 days in Maui and then do OGG-PPT for 27.5K HA miles. And come back PPT-LAX on AF using 40K AS miles. I could probably do it in reverse order as well.

Hey. First post. My wife and I are looking to go to either AUK or PPT vis RDU or CLT with a direct to LAX. She is PM on DL. Ideally, we leave around Dec 13 and return Dec 26. We are deciding if paying out of pocket vs points makes more sense. She is PM currently and should hit 60K miles this year without this trip. She currently has 400K miles available. I've got a number of questions. She has a delta amex plat.

1. Is it worth paying for the flight if it means she will hit PM rather than GM? It seems like flights run around $2000.

2. How do I search expertflyer intelligently? I am looking for the availability of the lowest mileage economy fares (we get free upgrade to economy comfort becauase of her PM)? Specifically, what fare class for either Air France (code share with Delta) or Delta do I need to find?

3. I get that I look for individual legs of the flight separately but without knowing the proper fare classes, I am getting bogged down in the details.

4. are there any 100K roundtrip options available in that time period? I am finding it difficult to search the AF legs despite signing up for an AF account so that I can search that website.

Thanks in advance. I'm happy to provide more details if that helps.