Dave,

You can book your flights as single one-ways or multi-island itinerary on the Air Tahiti website:
https://reservation.airtahiti.pf

When you enter your island choices and dates, a page will appear with available flights and give you a choice of either the Y or Z options. Choose Z and submit the res request; Air Tahiti will send you an email within 72 hours confirming availability and giving you instructions how to complete payment, if necessary.

Below is an example of the page that comes up with the Y and Z options (it's badly formatted, sorry!)
...............

Flights
• Please select your flights and fares to continue.

• Prices include fare, taxes, carrier surcharge and applicable service fee.

• You can sort flights by departure or arrival time or by flight duration when clicking on the respective column titles.


Previous Day Your departure flight : Moorea (MOZ) to Bora Bora (BOB) Fri Jul 5, 2013 Next day

Flights Departure Arrival Duration Stop Aircraft Base fare
Including baggage allowance of
20kg/44lb (Y) 50kg/110lb (Z)
VT 268 Fri 09:50 Moorea Fri 11:05 Bora Bora 1h 15m 1 ATR 24 466 XPF 28 566 XPF
VT 298 Fri 10:50 Moorea Fri 11:35 Bora Bora 0h 45m 0 ATR 24 466 XPF 28 566 XPF
VT 244 Fri 12:30 Moorea Fri 13:15 Bora Bora 0h 45m 0 ATR 24 466 XPF 28 566 XPF

VT 447 Fri 14:40 Moorea Fri 15:55 Bora Bora 1h 15m 1 ATR 24 466 XPF 28 566 XPF
Schedules in local time : 3 seats or less left. Clear selection

........................

You might also want to consider starting your itinerary with a PPT-MOZ flight (rather than taking the ferry), which may be the same price or only slightly higher as a round-trip multi-island itinerary than your two one-ways from MOZ-BOB and BOB-PPT.

Additionally, if your combined luggage weight (up to 3 bags per pax) is over 44 pounds each but not by a great deal, it might be cheaper to book a Y fare and pay the discounted round-trip excess luggage fee. For your itinerary, the charge round-trip would only be 2.60 Euro per kilo (2.2 pounds). http://www.airtahiti.aero/articles.php?id=712

Hope this helps!

We just returned from our Honeymoon to Moorea / Bora Bora. While we were concerned about the baggage limits too, we booked the cheapest tickets and figured we'd play it by ear once we got there. For Air Tahiti, we flew the same routing as you - MOZ-BOB and then BOB-PPT. Both times we had overweight bags but were not charged anything. From MOZ-BOB, 1 of our 2 checked bags was overweight and then both carry-ons were overweight, but the woman just shrugged her shoulders and said to pack lighter next time. In BOB, they didn't weigh carry-ons and they didn't seem to pay much attention to the weight of the checked luggage. We met a couple who flew PPT-BOB-PPT and were charged $72 in PPT for having several overweight pieces. They were provided with a receipt which was good for their return flight as well. So it seems as if the penalties, if enforced, aren't that severe. Obviously YMMV.

Thank you BarbiJKM and txny. I figured out my issue based on BarbiJKM post. It looks like Z class is not available with the multiple destinations. If I book two separate one way tickets, it shows the Z class availability. The reason we're flying from MOZ is we're spending a few days there.

txny, thanks for sharing your experience. It sounds like it's worth taking the chance especially with cost per kilo that BarbiJKM quoted.

Did you notice any difference in the seats for Y for Z class?

If you're talking about inter-island flights on TN, most of the flights seem to be operated with the same type of airplane (turboprop) and there's no pre-assigned seats (like Southwest). All the seats are also the same (no first or economy plus). I didn't check to see if exit rows had more room or not. That being said, most flights are so short (45 mins or less) that seats don't really matter much.

We paid the cheapest prices too and didn't have any issue but our bags weren't excessively heavy either.

There is no difference in seats by fare class and there is no assigned seating. From MOZ to BOB, try to choose seats on the left side of the plane for the best view of Bora Bora (assuming the flight takes the normal flight pattern that day). Have a great trip!

Thanks everyone. I will purchase the Y class tickets and hope not to get charged. We'll also try to board early to see if we can get good seats on the left side of the plane.

Thanks, all this info is good, as I am flying on Wednesday. I also have 6 flights in 2 weeks.

need a bit of advice. i am trying to get to have a 3 night stay at hilton moorea and a 4 night stay at hilton bora bora for me and my wife for our honeymoon vacation. i already have booked nov 17-21 in bora-bora and a nov14-15 moorea + a future appOrama with citi hilton reserve by june to get nov 15-17 stay to complete it. my only problem is getting there. points i have are:

AA miles = 100k
Delta miles = 50k
Amex points = 105k
UR = 200k
US airways = 40k
United = 77k


i just did an appOrama this first week of april and she cant apply for any credit cards coz she is unemployed and new here in the states. all points accounted for on my list above. so any suggestions on how i may be able to book our flight. i would really appreciate all the help i could get! thanks in advance

You'll need to work backwards.

You need to fly into PPT. So your choices from the USA are air france, air tahiti nui and hawaiian airlines. Secondly, you want to fly Y, J or whatever gets you there? Thirdly, you need to check which airlines have partnerships with air france, air tahiti nui and hawaiian. e.g. American Airlines and Delta have partnerships with tahiti nui. delta has partnerships with air france. Lastly, you will have to pay to fly between PPT and Moorea and Bora Bora. Maybe a combination of 1 ticket on AA and 1 on DL(presuming you transfer MR to DL) would be ok with both flying on tahiti nui. You may also transfer UR to Korean and then book using airfrance. Maybe the more experienced can chime in.

Make sure you check availability for your dates and place your res on a hold before transferring any points anywhere. Delta will charge you a $400+ fuel surcharge per person on each "free" Air Tahiti Nui ticket; I'm not sure if that's the case with Air France awards, so make sure you ask.

Don't forget to budget for your interisland flights: www.airtahiti.com. The flights to Bora Bora are pretty expensive, $400+ per person, and there are no mileage awards available. You can ferry to Moorea for about $15 each way, or include a flight to Moorea as a multi-island ticket to Bora Bora, and fly PPT-MOZ-BOB-PPT.

Also, you will have to spend one night in Papeete, either coming or going, because of the airline schedules. If you are flying TN or HA, you will arriving too late to get to another island, and will have to spend your first night in Papeete. If you are flying AF, the departure flight leaves too early in the morning to get there from another island, so you will need to spend your last night in Papeete. To take full advantage of the hotel reservations you've already made, add a day to each end of your trip for the international flights.

You might be able to exchange your miles with people who have thankyou points and book MOZ-BOB with thankyou points.

In case you have to purchase tickets out of pocket the cheapest I have found was by getting Citi Prestige card. You pay $400 fee and use BOGO to get two tickets (adding a AU for $50 more you get 4 tickets for the price of 2 which was what I did). You can even book all the way to BOB to apply BOGO on the inter-island flights.

Link? I'm interested in knowing how to book PPT-BOB tix with thank you points? Thanks~

You have to have a Citi CC that earns ThankYou points. If you have a Premier or higher card then your points are worth 33% more. You'll have to book the flight through the travel engine in the the ThankYou website. You'll have the option of doing a full points redemption or doing a points and cash. You can also do the same thing if you have Chase UR's. Only difference is that your Chase UR's will be worth 25% more.

The real problem you have is award availability. Just taking a quick look on Expert Flyer, there is very limited TN coach availability around the dates you are looking for. So you really need to book ASAP. I assume you are looking at flying coach as business is very difficult to get - even 330 days in advance. One way to book soon would be to transfer MR miles to Delta miles to make one ticket and then use your AA miles for the other ticket.

You should immediately check award availability with Expert Flyer or one of the other services and make your reservation ASAP.

yes definitely i am looking at coach awards only. the only thing about that is we wont be in the same flight which i think my wife wouldn't want that so im trying to look for a way like maybe book a 1 way with AA with my miles then book with US airways one way on the way back.


thanks for all the response guys!