Air Tahiti via Air France KLM Flying Blue: Pluses and minuses

Recently, it was announced that Air France KLM Flying Blue has launched a partnership with Air Tahiti. Not to be confused with Air Tahiti Nui, which operates long-haul flights to the US and France, Air Tahiti (no “nui” in the name) operates domestic flights within French Polynesia. This partnership represents the first opportunity to redeem miles for those domestic flights in French Polynesia, which means that travelers can now redeem miles for flights to Bora Bora and other French Polynesian islands. While the flights to Bora Bora initially excited me, a reader reported some interesting finds regarding the multitude of flight options to other French Polynesian islands. Unfortunately, the value isn’t very strong — particularly for family travelers.

Book Air Tahiti flights within a couple months of departure

Finding availability to book Air Tahiti via Air France is as simple as logging in to AirFrance.us and selecting the “Book with miles” tab in the award search tool.

It is worth noting that Air Tahiti flights only appear to be bookable within about 2 months of departure, though it varies a little bit by route.

For instance, I could only find availability from Papeete (PPT) to Bora Bora (BOB) through late June, whereas I could see some flights between Papeete (PPT) and Fakarava Atoll (FAV) into the first week of August. I have not yet seen any flights available for fall or flights far beyond the next couple of months.

I expect that this is by design and that the number of daily flights operating as well as the schedule likely varies a bit due to demand. My guess is that they want to minimize the number of awards impacted by schedule change and cancellation by only offering awards as the schedule firms up. That is only a guess, but since cash prices seem constant, I can’t imagine why flights abruptly cut off further than 2-3 months in advance of departure.

Award prices vary by route

Reader Daniel wrote in to bring to our attention the fact that award pricing on Air Tahiti is not a standard 15K miles each way as we expected but rather that it varies by route. It seems that each Air Tahiti route has a standardized price — which is to say that an award between Papeete (PPT) and Bora Bora (BOB) costs 15K miles any time it is available. However, that standardized price is different on other routes (which in hindsight makes sense since there are so many French Polynesian islands and both distances and cash prices vary quite a bit).

Daniel alerted us to the fact that awards on some routes cost as few as 6,000 miles each way and other routes price at 30K each way. Value isn’t very good by a straight mathematical comparison, though some may prefer award tickets for greater flexibility. Following are some examples.

Fly to Bora Bora for 15K miles each way (which is OK if not great)

Initially, I was excited because Flying Blue is charging 15K miles + $28.30 each way for flights between Papeete, Tahiti and Bora Bora.

I should note that despite my initial excitement, that is not a fantastic deal. In the past, I’ve seen round trip cost around $450. Currently, I’m seeing some prices on Air Tahiti for as low as just over $400. Taking out the $56.70 that one pays in taxes on a round trip, you’re looking at getting around $350-$370 in value from 30,000 miles — around 1.2c per mile, give or take a bit depending upon which flights you choose. That’s relatively low for Flying Blue miles.

And the comparison gets even worse if you compare against newer competitor Air Moana. Established in 2022, Air Moana did not yet exist when I visited Bora Bora years ago, but they have since established lower cash prices as compared to Air Tahiti. Most days, a round trip between Papeete and Bora Bora is in the low $360’s on Air Moana.

Comparing against the prices you could alternatively pay on Air Moana, value gets closer to 1c per point. Keep in mind that you can not book Air Moana with miles, only Air Tahiti.

When my family visited Bora Bora several years ago, we booked our flights between Papeete and Bora Bora via Chase Travel and got 1.5c per point with my wife’s Chase Sapphire Reserve card.

That remains a strong contender as a potential slightly better way to book these flights. Both Air Tahiti and Air Moana are available via Chase Travel, and the same Air Moana flights shown above for $363 via Google Flights were $353 on Chase Travel. That means that a Chase Sapphire Reserve cardholder would only need to redeem 23,534 points per passenger to cover those Air Moana flights, which makes more sense than transferring to Air France to book Air Tahiti if you are happy with Air Moana.

There is one slight advantage to booking via Air France: an award ticket can be changed or cancelled for a fee of $70, whereas the Air Moana flights are nonrefundable (and if I’m reading the fare rules correctly, the penalty to change or cancel is 75-100%, so while you may be able to cancel for a flight credit, you would at best lose most of what you paid).

My initial excitement had mostly been for the refundable nature of award flights. While a $70 cancellation penalty per passenger isn’t ideal, it would at least theoretically mean that I could lock in flights speculatively if I were willing to gamble that amount. In my own case, we have a trip to Bora Bora in the works already where I have seats for 2 of us to fly to Papeete, Tahiti and seats for all 4 of us to fly back to the US from Papeete, but there is some uncertainty since I am still missing two seats for the way there. Since I have hotel reservations already secured in Bora Bora, I’d love to be able to lock in flights between Papeete and Bora Bora now, but I’ve been hesitant to spend ~$400 per passenger x 4 passengers and chance losing it if plans change. I’d be happier with round trip award flights with some flexibility in this case.

Fly to Moorea for 6,000 miles one-way

Flights from Papeete (PPT) to/from Moorea ring in at just 6,000 miles and $28.90 one way.

Unfortunately, that’s a really poor value as cash prices on this route are around $80 one way.

In other words, after accounting for taxes, this route yields less than 1 cent per point in value.

Furthermore, you could take a ferry from Tahiti to Moorea for less than $13 per person and while it takes double the time that flying does, in this case that means that the ferry takes only 15 minutes longer than the flight :-).

Pricing for other island combinations

Rather than provide screen shots for every route, I’ll list out the rest of the routes that Daniel already checked and reported. Note that in some cases I had difficulty finding awards on my own, but it is worth noting that the search tool is temperamental (more on that in the next section).

• Papeete (PPT) to/from Huahine (HUH): 11K miles each way
• Papeete (PPT) to/from Raiatea (RFP): 12K miles each way
• Papeete (PPT) to/from Rangiroa (RGI): 16K miles each way
• Papeete (PPT) to/from Tikehau (TIH): 26K miles each way
• Papeete (PPT) to/from Fakarava (FAV): 28K miles each way
• Papeete (PPT) to/from Rurutu (RUR): 30K miles each way
• Papeete (PPT) to/from Tubuai (TUB): 30K miles each way

Daniel reported values between 0.6c per point and 1.5c per point, though I wouldn’t get your hear set on 1.5c per point. I think that will happen if perhaps you are very limited on schedule and happen to need whatever the most expensive flight of the day may be.

Note that the search tool is temperamental

If you plan to search for awards, know that the search tool is temperamental. While it initially works fine for a while, I would inevitably run into a situation where there were no flights available

I would often then get that error repeatedly, even on dates that I knew were available. I found that hitting “refresh” on that error page and then re-entering my search parameters seemed to bring the tool back to life while writing this post, though I had more difficulty a week or two ago where multiple refreshes and logging out and back in didn’t seem to help.

If you want to see multiple islands, consider an island pass

When Daniel wrote in with findings, he mentioned that he had a trip planned to French Polynesia (since completed) and that he had hoped that award pricing might make it possible to visit some of the more far-flung islands in French Polynesia for a great award price.

However, as I have mentioned a couple of times in passing before, booking an island pass is a much better deal for anyone interested in visiting multiple French Polynesian islands.

Air Tahiti offers a wide range of “island pass” tickets that enable the passholder to visit multiple islands (find more information about these island passes here). Prices vary based on the island combination, but generally speaking it is possible to visit multiple islands from ~$500-$600. The more exotic combinations can cost a couple/few hundred dollars more, but all of them represent solid value as compared to booking flights separately.

If you’re traveling with family, awards don’t make sense

Daniel also pointed out a fact that I’d discovered on our previous trip but forgotten: children enjoy significantly discounted pricing on Air Tahiti.

For instance, whereas one adult ticket on my example dates from Papeete to Bora Bora ran $400-$430 round trip, the cost for 1 adult and 1 child (age 2-11)  drops to $660 on Air Tahiti (and less on Air Moana).

The child tickets in these cases are ~$220 on Air Moana and ~$260 on Air Tahiti, yet they cost the same 30,000 miles round trip via Air France. If you are traveling with children, you will certainly want to book cash tickets, whether with dollars and cents or with points through a credit card portal.

You can book from Los Angeles to the islands as a single award, but pricing is cumulative

For those curious, it is indeed possible to book a single award from Los Angeles to Papeete and beyond, though award pricing is cumulative.

For instance, on one of my example dates, an economy class one-way ticket on Air France from Los Angeles (LAX) to Papeete (PPT) was ringing in at 98K Flying Blue miles one way (more than I paid in business class in the past!). It is possible to book Los Angeles to Papeete to Bora Bora (putting LAX-BOB in the search tool) as a single award ticket, but the price jumps exactly 15K miles to 113K on that example date. The situation appeared to be the same on other routes I spot checked.

Flying Blue does theoretically allow a stopover on award tickets, but you have to call to book these. Furthermore, since the pricing is cumulative anyway, there is very limited advantage to booking with a stopover rather than simply booking the tickets separately (I suppose you would only be on the hook for a single cancellation penalty if the trip got cancelled).

Bottom line

It is now possible to book Air Tahiti flights with Air France KLM Flying Blue miles. Sadly, this is not offer great value. With a transfer bonus, on the right route, if you value flexibility, and if you are not traveling with children, it could possibly make sense to book Air Tahiti with Flying Blue miles. Unfortunately, that is a lot of conditionals for a single sentence. Overall, you are probably better off finding another way to book your French Polynesia domestic flights.

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