The room alone was absolutely worth every point we spent. Thanks to that Diamond status, we were upgraded from the Lagoon View Suite to a King Deluxe Overwater Villa with direct lagoon access, an overwater hammock, and fully retractable windows. The room was spacious, comfortable, and modern, with features including a Bluetooth sound system that we took advantage of daily. And while service occasionally appeared to run on “island time,” employees were friendly and the food was good quality.
Booking business class flights to Tahiti
Before I locked in the Conrad with my points, I checked flights to make sure I could put together a reasonable itinerary in terms of the time and miles it would require. I’m based in Portland, Oregon, so I often connect in San Francisco, which happens to have nonstop flights to Tahiti on United Airlines—and so that’s where I began my search.
Sure enough, United, which also uses dynamic pricing like Hilton, had well-priced award availability in economy for 55,000 miles in late December. But better yet, the airline also had business class award space (i.e. seats bookable with miles) that had been deeply discounted for certain United MileagePlus program members: At the time, I held Premier Platinum elite status, which knocked the rate from 170,000 miles per one-way ticket down to 85,000 miles.
But my husband doesn’t have elite status, so he didn’t have the capability to book his ticket at that rate from his own account. Instead, we had to make sure I had enough points in my MileagePlus account to book tickets for both of us. While I was able to fund a large chunk of my ticket with a sign-up bonus I’d previously gotten on the United Quest Card (80,000 miles for spending $4,000 within three months of account opening), I didn’t have enough for both of us. So my husband transferred points from his Chase Sapphire Preferred to my United account and I transferred points from my Bilt Mastercard to my United account to reach the threshold.
Overall, for the outbound leg of our journey—Portland to Tahiti, with a stop in San Francisco—we used 170,000 United miles to score two business class tickets (85,000 miles each) that were running at $4,949.70 apiece in cash.
Booking flights home
The quickest and easiest route home was to take United through San Francisco once again, but after gutting our Chase Ultimate Rewards balances, we knew we had to use a different type of points to fly home. We turned to American Express Membership Rewards, which we both had plenty of thanks to my American Express Platinum Card and my husband’s American Express Gold Card. We booked our United economy flights through a partner program to which Amex transfers its points: Air Canada Aeroplan.