GlobalSTL

Booked syd-akl-ppt return no problems for June 2013. All nz.

GrayeDog

All,

Thanks in advance for all the help, and my apologies if this is in the wrong forum!

I'm looking to book a trip for my honeymoon around end of July/early August, 2013. We know we want to travel to French Polynesia, and since I have lots of United miles and tons of Hilton points, we want to fly to Papeete, spend a night on the big island, and 4 nights each at the Hiltons in Bora Bora and Moorea (in any order), and the probably another night at the big island before we go home.

I've attempted to look on both the United and Hilton sites to figure out how best to accomplish this, but I'm struggling mightily, so I thought I'd turn to the experts over here.

There are a few things we'd like to have as part of this trip
1) We want to fly at least Business Class. I don't necessarily need to book the flight entirely with miles (I have slightly over 200k United miles, and most likely next year I'll only have Silver status), but I'm open to something like booking with miles and upgrading with money, or vice-versa if that makes more sense.

2) We want to stay in one of the overwater villas at each of the Hilton resorts. In this case, I have over 700k Hilton points and Diamond status, so I'd like to use them instead of spending money if I can, but I don't know if it makes the most sense to book the upgraded room off the bat with points, book a smaller room with points and upgrade with more points, or something else.

3) I'm also completely unsure how to go about booking this and coordinating the flight and hotel reservations to make sure that we have rooms for the right days that we'll be there. I don't know if I'm better off booking myself online, calling the status lines at United (I have Gold status through the end of this year) and Hilton, or using a travel agent to try and coordinate everything for us.

Again, any advice whatsoever that we can have on the best ways to save money/maximize points and how to go about booking this would be extremely, greatly appreciated it!

Thanks again to everyone on FlyerTalk!

Adam

WineCountryUA

for info on travel to PPT
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...ts-latest.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...lus-miles.html

doable but not easy without a lot of planning

Hilton http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilton-hhonors-417/ or http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilto...esort-spa.html
and other local issues see http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ocean...h-pacific-461/

c5marine

Hello,

Plenty of miles to burn, but every time I check availability on United website to PPT from IAH for Dec 26/27, there is NOTHING.

Assuming there is nothing I can do? Any help/tips would be greatly appreciated.

kale73

You can call. NZ is the only *A carrier that serves PPT.

zoegksf

And I might add, a little late to be trying to use miles on a *A carrier, during the holidays to a warm weather destination, with 3 weeks notice. Best you can do is just call UA and hope for the best.

WineCountryUA

only 2 NZ operated flights that week (Sunday / Thursday) plus hope you're not really serious about availability 3 weeks out to a route that is really hard 6 months out.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...ts-latest.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...lus-miles.html

TimeToEarnMiles

CO used to fly to NAN from HNL, but that route was discontinued.

rankourabu

ok, lets recap.

You want a seat (I assume 2) to a destination that there are only 2 flights a week to, at Christmas time, 3 weeks before Xmas... in the height of southern summer, school holidays, etc.... IT AINT HAPPENING.

If you truly have plenty of miles to burn, you can get a standard award to SYD, and buy a ticket to PPT from there.

benchardf

Booked my honeymoon a couple of weeks back. We will be spending a week in Queenstown, NZ and a week in Bora Bora. Here is just a point of reference, I booked everything by phone:

For 80k MP miles x2: ORD to LAX in First (UA), LAX to Sydney in GF (UA), SYD to QZN (NZ)

Will be purchasing tickets to go QZN to AKL.

For 67.5k AA miles x2: AKL to PPT in Business (TN), Will be purchasing tickets PPT to BOB, and then PPT to LAX in Economy (TN).

Will be purchasing tickets LAX to ORD and then use GPUs to upgrade to first.

sammybk

Can anyone advise how to get around some draconian routing rules for going S. Pacific Islands - Japan on an award?

We have booked flights PPT-AKL-SYD-BKK-NRT at the correct mileage level. There are flights available PPT-AKL-PVG-NRT, which is a much shorter route, but for some reason it breaks the fare and United wants to charge for two one-ways PPT-AKL and AKL-NRT rather than the through mileage.

It appears the the UA computers have decided the only valid connection points are anywhere in Australia, NZ and BKK/SIN.

Always Flyin

I would call back and try again, but don't reference your existing booking. Just start from scratch and see if you get the same answer again.

Good luck!

sammybk

Yes, I have tried about 4-5 times and always ended up with the same answer. Something in the system is not liking the stop in PVG. It is a valid routing AKL-NRT, but not PPT-NRT. Why BKK/SIN are valid transit points must be because fares exit on those routings, but not connecting in PVG.

luv2go

I just booked a reward from LAX-SYD-AKL-NAN and back, in Business, and it was surprisingly only 120K miles instead of 135K. I figured since I was routing through SYD, it would take the higher mileage level. A pleasant surprise!

kmfdm91

While I might not want that routing (given that I have a lap infant now), but if that's all that's allowed on ua.sux and from the phone agents, and you can find flights that fit in BKK/SIN, just take them and take even more advantage of that area of *A flights (good redemption values from your city/region-pair ;-) )...

-jeremy