Tahiti is one of the most aspirational destinations out there, and also one of the toughest to get to on miles. Getting to French Polynesia is difficult because there are so few flights in general, which means award travel to Tahiti and Bora Bora is correspondingly limited.
For flights to Tahiti from North America, you basically have two options, both of which leave from Los Angeles. Given how many questions I receive about how to get to Tahiti on miles, I thought it might be helpful to go over the various mileage options.
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Air France
Air France operates a 777-200 between Los Angeles and Papeete with 3x-4x weekly service. Business class is a 2-3-2 configuration with angled-flat seats.
In terms of award space:
- It’s common to see 7+ economy seats when booking in advance
- Air France will sometimes release unsold business class seats in the days prior to departure
- Otherwise business class award space has been trending towards “very poor” as of late
How to find Air France award space to Tahiti
Expert Flyer is a great tool for finding Air France award space that can also be booked by Delta. As a rule of thumb, both “O” coded business class space and “X” coded economy space can be redeemed with SkyMiles. You’ll want to double-check with Delta, but this is probably the fastest way to check space across a range of dates.
The one caution with Expert Flyer is that occasionally the system will return results on the codeshare flights with Air Tahiti Nui. The booking codes are all different here, so it can be very confusing and frustrating.
The true Air France flights are operated by a 777 and have flight numbers of 76 and 77, so you can disregard the others.
Delta.com is a more usable option for finding mileage seats to Tahiti now that they’ve fixed the SkyMiles calendar. Make sure you’re searching from LAX to PPT, as the search engine isn’t very robust in terms of connections.
Alaskaair.com is a great free place to search for award space on Air France. I would also focus on the long-haul segment from Los Angeles to Papeete, and then add the other flights in once you’ve found the transpacific flight.
The FlyingBlue website will also display award space. If you’re redeeming through a partner airline you’ll want to search for “classic” level flights, though keep in mind that Delta doesn’t have access to all Classic space.
Redeem miles to Tahiti on Air France
Air France is a SkyTeam member airline, so you can redeem miles from any SkyTeam partner. Air France also partners with Alaska Mileage Plan and JAL Mileage Bank, which gives you a few options.
| Airline Program | Miles Required – Business | Transfer Partners |
|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan | 60,000 one-way | Starwood Preferred Guest |
| Alitalia MilleMiglia | 90,000 round-trip | American Express Membership Rewards Starwood Preferred Guest |
| Air France / KLM FlyingBlue | 75,000 one-way | American Express Membership Rewards Citi ThankYou Points Starwood Preferred Guest |
| Delta SkyMiles | 160,000 round-trip | American Express Membership Rewards Starwood Preferred Guest |
| Japan Airlines JAL Mileage Bank | 65,000 round-trip | Starwood Preferred Guest |
| Korean Air SkyPass | 90,000 round-trip | Chase Ultimate Rewards |
In terms of the best value, there are a few things to consider about each program.
Alaska Mileage Plan
Alaska will allow you to add connecting flights on Alaska metal. They tend to have fantastic award availability, and allow stopovers even on one way tickets. This wouldn’t be my favorite use of Alaska miles, but there is certainly some value to be had here. Alaska doesn’t impose fuel surcharges for travel on Air France.
Alitalia Milemigglia
Booking awards through Alitalia is complicated, but they have a great award chart for flights to Tahiti, provided you’re exclusively traveling on Air France. If you include segments on Delta the price jumps dramatically, and given how terrible domestic availability is with Delta it’s probably not worth the price premium. Alitalia also imposes fuel surcharges for travel on Air France.
Air France/KLM FlyingBlue
Air France offers enhanced availability for FlyingBlue members, though it’s still not great. Flex awards are a terrible value, but if you’re trying to coordinate a honeymoon in Tahiti and have a ton of Citi ThankYou points this might be an acceptable option. There’s also potential value in redeeming for Premium Economy, which we’ll get into below. Air France imposes fuel surcharges for travel on their own flights.
Delta SkyMiles
As opposed to the other programs on this list, Delta will allow you to combine an unlimited number of partners on an award ticket. So you can have flights on Delta, Alaska, Air France, and even Air Tahiti Nui. Domestic availability on Delta-operated flights is horrible, but if you’re booking in the next few weeks Delta does still allow a stopover on awards. You won’t pay any fuel surcharges for awards originating in the US, which is a nice perk.
JAL Mileage Bank
Japan Airlines has a distance based award chart, and one of the more interesting partnerships they have is with Air France (given that Japan Airlines is in oneworld and Air France is in SkyTeam).
Los Angeles to Tahiti is just over 4,000 miles one-way, so roundtrip you’re looking at 8,000+ miles. If you look at Japan Airlines’ award chart, that makes the roundtrip cost of an award on Air France 40,000 miles in economy or 65,000 miles in business class.
That’s by far the lowest mileage cost of any program to Tahiti.
JAL imposes fuel surcharges for travel on Air France.
Korean Air SkyPass
Korean Air partners with Air France, and they charge 90,000 SkyPass miles for a roundtrip business class award between the US and Tahiti. Assuming you can find award space on Air France, that’s one of the better values out there.
It’s worth noting, however, that Korean imposes fuel surcharges for travel on Air France.
Air France Premium Economy
Given how lousy business class availability can be, Air France’s premium economy product might be worth considering for flights to Tahiti. The seats are a bit wider than economy, and in a 2-4-2 configuration. You also get about six more inches of leg room.
Availability through FlyingBlue is comparatively decent, with a one-way classic flight award pricing at 60,000 plus about $200 in taxes and fees.
That’s not a great redemption, comparatively speaking, but given FlyingBlue is a transfer partner of several flexible points currencies, it might be worthwhile for a Tahiti honeymoon or something if you couldn’t find business class award space.
Air Tahiti Nui
The other carrier with nonstop award space from the US to French Polynesia is Air Tahiti Nui, which operates an A340-300 between Los Angeles and Papeete with daily and sometimes twice daily service. Business class is also angled-flat, and in a 2-2-2 configuration.
In terms of award space:
- Economy space seems to be somewhat binary. Either I’ll see 4+ economy seats, or zero.
- Air Tahiti Nui typically releases two business class award seats around when the schedule opens. I’ve never seen more than two per flight.
- Inventory doesn’t seem to be “actively” managed, and I typically don’t see much last-minute award space.
How to find Air Tahiti Nui award space to Tahiti
None of their partner airlines display Air Tahiti Nui award space online, so using ExpertFlyer is probably your best bet. You’ll want to select “I” for business class or “W” for economy.
The space on ExpertFlyer seems to match what partner programs have access to, though it can be tough for phone agents to find the flights in their systems.
Redeem miles to Tahiti on Air Tahiti Nui
| Airline Program | Miles Required – Business | Transfer Partners |
|---|---|---|
| American Airlines AAdvantage | 62,500 one-way | Starwood Preferred Guest |
| Delta SkyMiles | 160,000 round-trip | American Express Membership Rewards Starwood Preferred Guest |
American AAdvantage
American will allow you to add domestic segments on Alaska, American, or US Airways, and domestic space tends to be better than what Delta offers. You won’t pay fuel surcharges on these awards, and given you can hold an award for several days while you transfer points from SPG, this is one of my favorite options.
Delta SkyMiles
Delta has been the perennial favorite for awards to Tahiti, given that SkyMiles is the only program that partners with both Air France and Air Tahiti Nui. As Delta shifts to offering one-way awards in 2015 this is less of a priority, but it’s still nice that SkyMiles can be redeemed on both airlines to Tahiti.
The caveat here is that it’s really hard to book Air Tahiti Nui through Delta. Nine of ten agents don’t know the airline exists, much less that they’re a SkyMiles partner. Also, while Delta doesn’t impose fuel surcharges for travel originating in the US on Air France, they do impose fuel surcharges for travel on Air Tahiti Nui.
Bottom Line
Awards to Tahiti are unique. Redeeming miles to French Polynesia is challenging not because the routes or rules are complex, but rather because there is such limited capacity.
Similarly, many of the programs that we traditionally consider to be the “best value” don’t do you much good if you want to use miles to Tahiti. There’s not a realistic way to redeem United miles to Tahiti, for example, particularly not in a premium cabin, due to the lack of Star Alliance service to the islands.
Has anyone redeemed miles to Tahiti? Which program did you use?
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