Dream stay in Bora Bora or the Maldives

[ericburnard]

Evening everyone.

Apologies if this is not in the correct forum but I am a little unsure of where it would live given the choice.

I am relatively new to points, cards, and rewards and currently have only a Business Platinum Amex Card to my name (Outside of ‘bank accounts’ and debit cards). It’s always been my dream to holiday and stay at an overwater villa in either Bora Bora or the Maldives, but ideally the first. As I am at the beginning of my points and rewards journey I thought it would be best to roughly plan out the best route to get to my dream holiday.

I currently have a good credit rating so most cards should be ok for me to achieve and I have 70k points on the platinum card from a signup bonus and looking at grabbing a personal gold card when the next decent sign up bonus appears.

I am wondering if anyone could recommend the best ‘path’ for me to get to where I’d like to be, or even some advice on what to look out for, what kind of points I should try to build up (best ones that could transfer to other points?). I have seen certain points can be transferred to hotel chains for more points than if they are used directly on flights etc. Also that certain hotel brands won’t allow you to use their points against those top tier hotels or you still have to pay £1,000’s on top of the points.

I’m fully aware that it will take me a long time to get to my goal, but it’s always good to know which direction I should set off in.

Thanks for all of your help

Eric

[meta]

Bora Bora is tougher in terms of flights and hotels as it involves having access to different miles currencies and some hotels release redemptions at odd times. Maldives should be relatively straightforward.

Bora Bora options
AA Advantage miles (from Los Angeles or Tokyo)
Flying Blue/Skyteam for Air France (don’t know how difficult though is to score seats)
Most chains are present / IHG, Hilton Marriott,

Maldives options
Avios or Virgin Points
All chains are present/ more choices for non-chain hotels with overwater villas at affordable rates

[NorthernLass]

I read this as “unsure of where I would live given the choice”! But not quite, lol.

As @meta says, the chains are present, especially in Maldives, however points rates are very high and as food and drink isn’t generally included, you still end up paying a lot of money.

Rob has done a series of articles on how to build a good points balance by maximising sign up bonuses – read these before you apply for any more cards as you’re in a good position only having a business Amex at the moment – you can get SUBs on the Marriott, BAPP and personal Platinum Amexes. MR points are the most flexible, but the BA cards and Barclays avios mastercard would also allow you to collect avios if you are hoping to use points for flights as well as hotels.

[zapato1060]

I was enquiring this very trip. Maldives seems like every man and his dog is going to so Bora Bora is still not as “instagrammy”. A possible is LHR-SFO/LAX in biz with oneworld aka Avios. then United or Low cost airline FrenchBee (economy £400ish return) to Tahiti. Its a good old slog to get there as you still need Tahiti to Bora Bora internal flight (50min). Make sure you set off with enough time as the jetlag will be a good one with PPT being 11 hours behind and Maldives 4 in front. Thats quite the difference.

[meta]

I am hoping LATAM brings back IPC (Easter Islands) – PPT route as that would be a great option via Santiago and good for adjustment to time zones. Although strangely I feel less jet lagged than I used to, even with 9h+ differences.

P.S. There is more to French Polynesia than Bora Bora – Moorea, Raiatea, Huahine, Rangiroa… You can buy various inter-island passes with Air Tahiti (not to be confused with Air Tahiti Nui).

[YC]

Given the distance, I wouldn’t do bora bora alone. Potentially a RTW trip would work well. I have tagged this at the end of an Australia/NZ trip and actually flying home via Auckland/Doha as the surcharges for flying via US is high. Be careful with the international dateline if you are doing connections.

In terms of hotels, Bora Bora’s hotels are a bit more dated but the sea life looks superior. Either place, buying hotel points in promos makes sense to top up your balances. Also, if u want overwater, there are only a few hotels (JW Marriott Maldives) that offer this as a standard room. For others, you could email the hotel for upgrade rates and potentially just upgrade a few nights for the experience.

[Colin MacKinnon]

Hi Eric,

Welcome to our world!

We are off to Bora Bora etc in late August. We planned it for last year but postponed since three months before our trip they were still insisting on masks on board boats.

To get there, we looked at various options. It is possible to get there business class in cash for around £3,000 each, leaving from mainland Europe (we were ex-Dublin, returning to Edinburgh) and there is a current fare on Flyertalk premium fares deals to Auckland for around that price – with stopover allowed in the the USA and Japan (which was our second plan!)

Learn to use Google flights.

But with the price of the wood pellets for our home going up from £210 a tonne to £595 a tonne, we went into cash saving mode.

To be frank, it is probably more expensive using points (fuel at Sainsburys is my Avios/Nectar base price) – especially when you think of the points earned from a cash ticket. But sometimes cash is king!

Plan C involved me booking on the day they came available, TYO-PPT on Air Tahiti Nui via American Airline points – a steal at 40,000 AA points for a 10 hour flight in business! – and also AKL-PPT. Not so much as steal, it is only a four-ish hour flight, so similar to going to the Canaries. Couldn’t get PPT-TYO, but booked PPT-AKL on AA points too. (You can’t use Avios because Air Tahiti Nui is an “informal” AA partner, rather than part of One World)

Plan D came into force when ATN cancelled their Japan flights and AA would only re-route TYO-LAX-PPT in economy!

So now we have a BA 241 EDI-LHR-SYD – there is great availability from Scotland with the new vouchers – and we are staying a few nights (on IHG points) in Sydney in case of hiccups. Then Qantas to AKL and a night in AKL (in case of hiccups, but there are many flights a day). Then the evening flight to Papeete. Staying in IC PPT on IHG points for two nights (yes, in case of any hiccups) and then 18 nights on a small ship – 180 passenger – Windstar cruise round the islands.

Cruise not cheap, but to us seems cheaper than hotels and we travel between islands at night, rather than spend time in airports! A budget option, but still fun, would be a cabin charter on a yacht. So you have one of four or five cabins on a catamaran, with a skipper and a steward included.

Our return is flight back to AKL. Then a week in NZ since we are on the other side of the world and it would be rude not to! Then Qatar via Doha to Edinburgh. Booked with Avios.

I am keeping an eye out for Qatar availability to AKL from Europe since I am not looking forward to 23 hours in CW!

The great advantage of points is that you have flexibility with tickets and hotels.

You can collect AA points in the UK via the Bonvoy Amex. Avios are obviously the easiest to collect and always look and see if it is worth buying hotel points compared to the cash prices.

And think about perks. We had Hiltons booked for Tahiti because of free breakfasts for Gold members (a perk of Amex plat). But then swapped to IHG when they gave Diamond Galactic elites free brekkie. £60-80 a day for breakfast for two in a “resort” hotel with no other options gets expensive!