Trip Report: Winter Holidays in French Polynesia

Just over a year ago, Marriott announced a large devaluation in which they removed their award chart in favor of dynamic pricing. At that time, I had been sitting on a large chunk of Marriott Bonvoy points and I wanted to use them before the new pricing went into effect. 

Additionally, there was one Marriott property in particular that was sitting at the top of my hotel bucket list: the St. Regis Bora Bora resort. Availability is not always easy to find, but I knew that booking a year in advance meant I had a pretty good shot at finding the standard room award space I needed.

After booking 5 nights at the St. Regis for mid-December 2022 back in December 2021, the trip was born. My next order of business was to figure out how I was getting to French Polynesia, other hotels where I hoped to stay, and how to get home.

Luckily, I had an entire year to plan the trip, and as the saying goes, the early bird gets the worm, so I set out to book a memorable trip for my family. This trip report is dedicated to my time getting to and exploring French Polynesia.

Trip Outline

While I had originally planned to review the St. Regis Bora Bora and whatever other hotel where I ended up staying, I never anticipated that I would be on an inaugural flight during this trip. Luckily for me, Delta happened to launch a new route from Los Angeles to Tahiti on the day I was already planning to fly the same exact route, just on a different airline, Air Tahiti Nui.

This trip report will include everything surrounding my first inaugural flight, as well as hotel reviews of three different hotels.

These stories include:

• Lounge Review: Delta’s New LAX SkyClub
• Inaugural Flight Celebrations on Delta LAX to Tahiti
• Flight Review: Delta Economy LAX-PPT
• Hotel Review: Hilton Tahiti Resort
• Room Review: Hilton Tahiti King Residence Suite
• Flight Review: Air Tahiti PPT-BOB 
• Hotel Review: St Regis Bora Bora Resort
• Hotel Transfer: Chartering a Private Boat in Bora Bora!
• Hotel Review: Conrad Bora Bora Nui Resort
• Room Review: Conrad Bora Bora Nui Deluxe Overwater Villa with Pool
• Day of Departure in Moorea: My Thoughts

The Last Point

This trip allowed me to hit arguably the second most sought-after points and miles destination behind the Maldives: Bora Bora. Additionally, I got the amazing opportunity to go on my first inaugural flight.

I look forward to sharing this bucket list trip of mine.