The Conrad Bora Bora is one of my favorite Hilton properties in the world (read my review of the Conrad Bora Bora)… it’s one of the things Paris Hilton and I have in common.
Continue reading: Great Deal: Award Nights At Conrad Bora Bora
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Stayed here in June if 2021. This property does not upgrade Diamond members despite the fact that the hotel was at 50% capacity. The staff is wonderful and they will get to know you by name. They may offer an upgrade for only the last night of stay as we were offered. Best hotel redemption ever.
I wouldn't call the standard room a villa. I wouldn't even call it a suite. It's in a building attached to other rooms.
no one probably cares but biggest issue for me is getting there. No point availability and minimum $1300... often $1500 economy with minimum 2 stops from Seattle... 15-25 hours each way. Is Bora Bora that much great? or am I living in a wrong city? I guess SFO or LAX flyers will have better options.
Too bad that Air Tahiti Nui doesn't fly to Australia, and NZ currently virtually closed to transit (it's the only way to get to Tahiti from Australia that doesn't go through LAX), otherwise I would book this deal right now.
Glad I caught this within 5 mins of post! Not sure what will work with work but have nights booked for memorial day and juneteenth weekend. From SFO flights aren't too bad. Bora Bora only makes sense from SFO and LAX it's true.
@ 787
FYI (apologies if you're already across this stuff)
Relevant flight schedules for OZ seem to start populating from early July.
But the Air NZ flights seem to arrive into PPT after 1am and return at 3am or so. Not very user-friendly.
Alternative - Air Calin passes through once a week - you can route to OZ via Noumea - morning departures from PPT.
Tickets purchased and FF awards per QF allow combining QF flights with Air Tahiti Nui.
AA points can get you onto TN flights as well.
Be careful with speculative booking of Conrad on HH points - the cancellation date is one month out (or was the last time I went there).
IME an excellent property in all regards. The shuttle boat to Vaitape is especially handy - the excellent waterfront Restaurant St James is an easy walk from the dock - local shops to access if you want to "slum it " rather than always pay the big bucks in the resort. The breakfast spread is wonderful. A great renovation in the conversion from Hilton to Conrad.
There is a new Hilton property on Tahiti, which might be useful for overnights when connecting, and something different from the functional yet comfortable InterContinental.
Regular rates here are $600-700 a night so it’s a good deal but not screaming.
Went here last year. Property is awesome. Breakfast is great. Drinks and dinner not so much. Of course French wines are very reasonably priced so that’s your way to go.
One annoying thing they did to me was they never credited me Hilton points for the upgrade upcharge. Especially I lost out on triple points using the Amex Aspire card. Ten phone calls to the Diamond customer service and after numerous emails I finally gave up with a bad taste for Hilton service. Apparently the hotel plays games and does not transit the upgrade charge to Hilton and despite having a paper receipt I got nowhere!
The knuckleheads at their overseas service center keep insisting that I used points for the room so there should be points given out for it. For the life of me I couldn’t explain to them that I was asking for points for the upcharge. Reading some of the emails from the hilton customer service made a laugh that they hire such idiots unless it’s pre planned to cheat the customers out of the points they deserve.
And did I mention I paid an upcharge of almost 800 dollars per night for a otw bungalow with a pool and views for 8 nights. The property is worth visiting but question every penny that you spend is worth it or not as you may not get credited with the correct points.
Regular rates here are $600-700 a night so it’s a good deal but not screaming.
Blanket statement that does not take into account seasonal price changes, taxes and fees, and duration of stay.
I just did a dummy booking for a 5-night award stay:
- Nightly standard villa revenue rate: $926
- Nightly award cost: 89K
For 5 nights with the 5th award night free: 356,000 HH points
Cost for a 5-night revenue stay, including taxes and fees: $7,080.52
Redemption value: $7,080.52/356,000HH points = $0.0199/HH point
= ~2.0 cents/HH points or a whopping ~6.0 cents/WoH point -- that's a "screaming" deal!
The redemption value would easily be over 1cpp even for $600/night after one includes taxes and fees and the 5h award night free (it makes no sense to travel that far and do less than 5 nights!)
Q.E.D.
booked 5 nights in september, hoping for a diamond member upgrade, but not holding my breath.
Have reservations in three weeks. Hopefully no COVID spikes between now and then!
Made reservations for two nights stay at amoeba and 5 nights stay at Conrad, dates 11-18 February.
Nice. Hope it last awhile longer for early 23 beach stay. November I’m doing Coast to Coast A380 First solo: LAX SYD (QF) SIN FRA JFK (SQ)
Also will have more Honors points by then after using many in Ponce PR next month 🙂
Where did you guys see this 89k chart? I searched everywhere on Hilton site, called Diamond line, ck every night fr now to 2023. Lowest points per night is 680000 to 1.2 million per night.
We were fortunate to receive an overwater Villa upgrade on the last day of the stay. We decided to pay for an additional OW night the day before our free upgrade. They charged us $250 for the additional night. Was worth it for 2 full nights
Yup, they're all gone and that is data point #2 that supports what someone at WA Maldives customer support told me when I essentially accused the property of playing games with standard award availability. Here's what he wrote, verbatim, in response to my "accusation" (emphasis added):
Reward stays are in very high demand for unique properties like us. Since the opening of the resort we have seen a tremendous demand on standard redemption and since we reopened after the pandemic back in August 2020 the demand has even increased. Our inventory is open for 365 days and as soon as the inventory is opened the standard villas get booked up within few hours or some cases in less than an hour. You may hardly find availability for a night or two.
As one who does not generally believe that loyalty programs' raison d'être is to withhold from members promised benefits, I thought about that explanation of why standard awards at WA Maldives or Los Cabos are seldom available and it made sense: those properties are so popular that as soon as standard award inventories are opened for booking, they are immediately snatched like hot cakes. That is what just happened at Conrad Bora Bora and that is what happened at WA Maldives last month: half a month of award availability in 01/2023 when I checked disappeared in a snap, as can be seen in the two-page PDF that captured it at the link below:
At least in the HH system, it seems that 'aspirational' properties do not play games with standard award inventories. It could simply be that 'aspirational' awards simply get snatched as soon as they are released, 12 months at a time. That means that one would have better luck being on the stakeout and monitoring awards availability frequently a year ahead...
LOL. Not an error. See my post below for a more mundane and less paranoid explanation.
Hot cakes do not last and nor do "aspirational" awards!
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the whole calendar opened up to standard award availability just for Valentines Day. It seems pretty clear that whoever controls award availability for the hotel did it as a special for the holiday. I’d been keeping an eye on space daily for weeks. On the 13th there was no standard availability all year. Virtually every day for 2022 was available the morning of the 14th. Availability did diminish as the day went on yesterday but late last night (Feb 14th) after a full day of people making bookings at least half the days throughout 2022 still had availability at 89k/nt. Some time after midnight (I’m guessing midnight PPT time) all the remaining space was simultaneously pulled across the board and availability reverted to what was shown on the 13th. Based on that I think it’s fair to say with certainty that the hotel does indeed still have standard rooms available for most dates, but releases and pulls the standard award inventory incrementally at its discretion throughout the year. In the case of yesterday it seems pretty apparent that whoever controls award availability for the hotel released it and then cut it off in a blanket fashion after a 24 hour “sale”. I’m sure the vast majority of standard rooms that were still available last night at midnight are unreserved but just no longer bookable…for now
If what you are saying is true, you'd still see some straggling award nights available here and there and not all dates available then no dates available. Clearly your explanation is false.
Not necessarily as it depends on how awards booked, but there are "straggling award nights available here and there", especially for nearby dates. Play with the Points Explorer to see the frustrating "islands" of availability.
Think about it. What is the likelihood that a property like WA Maldives is likely to have significant numbers of standard villas available on at least 2 consecutive days just waiting be booked? Just common simple sense...
G'day.
There is no conspiracy at all. Only a small fraction of the world celebrates Valentine's day, y'know. Simple logic explains what happened.
The property likely had previously released only a limited number of standard awards, if any at all, due to the pandemic (resorts are labor intensive!) and then simply decided that the threat had abated sufficiently to release more or the rest. The awards hung around a bit until sites like OMAAT and hundreds of others around the world alerted their readers and then they were snatched up like hot cakes.
That there was availability practically the entire year indicates simultaneously release of previously held of inventory. The property is relatively small and is not likely to have many standard awards available and just waiting to be booked.
Just be happy that more awards were released instead of worrying about why they were released !!!
BTW, @Omar, please followed the link to the PDF I posted above. On page 2 you will see "some straggling award nights available here and there..." as awards were being booked. I even marked it on the calendar. Take a look. I have more examples...
"That there was availability practically the entire year indicates simultaneous release of previously held inventory."
Come to think of it, with over 1M HH points remaining after booking my 5-night WA Maldives award stay, I still should have booked another 5-night award stay at Conrad Bora Bora where I've never been, just ahead of my January 2023 WA Maldives stay, and with a few stops along the way, that could have been the extent of my 2022 Year-end Asian Escapade!
It's now unclear when we'll again see such a wide availability of standard awards at Conrad Bora Bora 🙁
Just got back from here 6 nights on points 2 nights paid. Upgraded to overwater suite for all nights. Weather was kinda bad but property is great. Well worth the points. Room rate was $1500 in January.