This trip took place in 2015 with most of the planning in 2014, some things may have changed, like the Moorea Intercontinental no longer exists 🙁
Before we figured out any wedding details we knew we wanted to go to Bora Bora for our honeymoon. We had seen so many pictures of the beautiful overwater bungalows and we knew we absolutely had to figure out a way to make that possible for us!
Flights and hotels for French Polynesia can be insanely expensive. Hotels in Bora Bora can be $1000s per night and there’s not a many budget options either. We knew the only way to make our $15,000 dream honeymoon a reality was to pay for some of it with points.
Acquiring the points
Luckily (and unluckily) when you’re planning a wedding you’re spending quite a bit of money on things from transportation, hotels, venue, food, etc.
For anything that accepted a credit card which was most things, we paid for using our Capital One travel card. This allowed us to earn extra points on this card that we could towards travel.
The hotel that we found for our guests to stay during our wedding weekend was a Marriott/SPG property. When setting up a room block with them instead of getting our free night stay we instead asked for the hotel points. For each guest that was not using a Marriott account we were able to essentially inherit those hotel points. (not sure if they still allow this)
Unfortunately those points didn’t come in until after the wedding and after our honeymoon so we used those for future trips!
For all business travel we did (which was a lot on Nate’s side) we tried to choose Marriott/SPG hotels whenever possible to earn points. Convincing your coworkers that the Marriott is better even though it’s slightly further away is the way to go!
THe Trip!
We booked flights from Dallas to LA on AA and then from LA to Tahiti on Air Tahiti. Unfortunately our flight in Dallas was delayed & we had to run to make our connection in LA. Luckily the flight to Tahiti was delayed by 2 hours (of course not until we were all at the gate ready to board) so after sprinting we casually sat around in our own sweat for several hours. LAX is one of the worst airports in my opinion (especially for international flights), once we finally made it on the plane we sat on the tarmac for over an hour. If you want to start your honeymoon out strong, avoid LAX.
When booking flights to Tahiti there were not many options when coming from the states. Our flights were about $1500 per person round trip for economy. Having just paid for our wedding we didn’t consider upgrading to business & we had no more miles left. (In total we spent ~$4400 on flights, DFW-LAX, LAX-Tahiti, Moorea -Bora Bora, Bora Bora-Tahiti, Tahiti-LAX, LAX-BOS which we primarily erased with the capital one points)
8 hours later, when you arrive in Tahiti you’re welcomed by local singers and dancers which makes the slow customs line experience much better.
Tahiti
With Nate’s SPG points we were able to book 5 nights at Le Meridien Tahiti for free. The hotel has a sweet lagoon and a few overwater bungalows.
Because they don’t have very many bungalows getting upgraded into these can be tough, luckily they let us move into one for our last 2 nights. Pro Tip– make sure you ask if it’s possible to upgrade for part of your trip even if the whole stay isn’t available.
Papeete is much larger than the other islands, on our 3rd day we rented a car from the hotel so that we could explore the parks and black sand beaches. We visited Les 3 Cascades (waterfall), Grotte de Mara and Taharuu black sand beach.
Driving here is not too difficult because there’s only one road that goes around the whole island. I highly recommend getting out of your resort and exploring the surrounding area because it’s beautiful! There were pockets where the road had a lot of potholes so be careful!
Moorea
From Tahiti we headed to Moorea. Moorea was not really on our list to visit but we added it on because the flights from Tahiti to Bora Bora were very expensive, and we didn’t have enough points to add more nights in Bora Bora. With our giant suitcases, we took the ferry from Tahiti to Moorea. The ferry only takes about 30 minutes and is $15, totally worth the minor inconvenience.
In Moorea we stayed at the Intercontinental IHG property using points for 2 nights for free. This property was massive and definitely more of a family spot. Moorea and this property reminded us of Aruba. Visiting Aruba is way closer and cheaper so might as well just go to Aruba if you’re thinking of visiting Moorea. We spent the majority of our 2 days kayaking around the lagoon in Moorea and avoiding small children.
Bora Bora
From Moorea we FINALLY headed to our real destination, Bora Bora! It’s no surprise that the airport in Moorea is tiny, the airplane has propellers and there is no jet bridge.
The airport in Bora Bora is on its own island so you have to arrange ahead of time for your hotel to scoop you up in one of their boats. At the time Nate had an ambassador with his SPG status and he arranged a private pick up for us and we felt like celebs! With Marriott’s increased spending requirements for Ambassador service we no longer qualify for this 🙁
At the Le Meridien Bora Bora there are only over water bungalows and the further out you are from the shore the more privacy you have. We were upgraded to the very last bungalow and had no one next to us!!
For Le Meridien Bora Bora we booked with a promotion where we paid for 3 nights and got 1 free. We used points for all the other hotel stays but didn’t have enough for Bora Bora. The hotel was $2144 which equates to $536/night, but it was the only hotel we paid for so we looked at it like we spent $2144 for 2 weeks and that was a win 🙂
Elite Status Perks
For those with Marriott platinum status I hope you always choose the breakfast as your reward and not the local gift or the tiny amount of extra points. Places like this is where it pays to be platinum! Having access to the breakfast buffet for free is huge because not only was it delicious, it’s $50/ day / person that you save if you have status. The dinners at this property were delicious but very expensive. Let me say the Evian water at dinner adds up, so drink the french wine instead.
The hotel offers a breakfast delivery (for a fee) where they bring a breakfast spread to you from the water.
Unfortunately we never spent any time on the main island in Bora Bora because we loved everything about our bungalow and Le Meridien. We spent our short time jumping off our deck, snorkeling and being weirdos. Had we been able to spend a few more days in Bora Bora we would have loved to explore the main island.
Return Flight
To head back to the states you’ll need to fly from Bora Bora back to Tahiti. Because of the flight times we decided to break up the return significantly and stayed one more night in Tahiti at Le Meridien again for free. From Tahiti we flew to LA on Air Tahiti and stayed 1 night in Santa Monica before taking a flight back to Boston. We stayed at Le Meridien Delfina in Santa Monica (on points) and rented a car so we could drive around Santa Monica. Coming from Bora Bora the LA beaches are such a let down…
Travel Tips
- if you don’t have a lot of time in French Polynesia, head straight to Bora Bora, or add 1 night in Tahiti to break up the flights. There are a lot of resorts that only have bungalows in Bora Bora so you’ll have lots of options, plus the views are much better than on the other islands . All the major hotel chains have properties there so consider converting points for nights if possible to save some money.
- The benefit of the overwater bungalows is that if you can access the water directly as opposed to from the beach and you can avoid all the sea cucumbers. They cover the sea floor here so this is a good way to avoid stepping on one of them.
- Eat the French food & French wine! It was crazy to me being so far away from France but eating incredible French food. In Tahiti we drove by local houses and saw what looked like mail boxes outside of the houses but they were actually baguette boxes where bread was dropped off daily. Our diet consisted of brie and bread for 2 weeks (I know kind of gross now thinking about it but it was great)!
