??? to use FF miles to Tahiti
 

I have 99K ff miles w/ AA...called mileage award dept. and found out that it would cost 75K miles for one FF ticket SFO-Papeete....I was shocked, so many miles...the agent said I should be "creative" and think about booking to Australia/NZ and "stopping off" in Tahiti.....hmmm...now I have a lot to think about!
All this started b/c I am thinking 'bout a Tahiti cruise which begins and ends in Papeete so I was trying to use miles rather than do the air add-on through the cruise line. Any thoughts ??? I'm trying to get the best bang for my miles....Thank you

There have some great specials by Qantas and Air New Zealand (Qantas is partners with American) which offer the stopover. Check the price. Maybe you could use the miles to upgrade or save them for another trip. If you add a cruise you will need specific dates to fly which can make using frequent flyer miles more difficult. If the ticket is over $1,500 use miles.

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. Do you want to cruise Tahiti or do you want to redeem your miles for the maximum $ value per mile and you don't really care where you go? How much is the cruise line's air? I would venture to guess it's in the neighborhood of $800 from SFO. To me that's not worth spending 75K miles but if the additional cost of the air would mean the difference between going or not going, then I would consider using the miles. If you simply want to get the most value out of your miles, then yes there are a lot of other destinations that will provide more bang for the buck.

Use your miles. Fly to New Zealand and spend a few days, then fly to Papeete and go on your cruise, then back home. Or stop in PPT then NZ then back home.

Or get an open-jaw ticket. Fly SFO- PPT- WAS. Cruise, then visit D.C., and buy cheap one-way on jet blue from IAD to Oakland. Or SFO-PPT-NYC and a cheap seat on AA back home. SFO-PPT-LAS

I think you would be flying through LAX. I think that you might not be able to make free stopover there, but I could be wrong.

On Northwest it is 100,000 miles per ticket to Papeete and I'm not sure you can even start out from the midwest or if that is only from LAX. My cruise air add on was $840 pp (LAX to PPT) and it was an additional $210 for tickets from MSP to LAX.

Both Northwest and American have an agreement with Air Tahiti Nui that essentially allows their Frequent Flyer to redeem miles on Air Tahiti Nui. Tahiti is a difficult market to get free tickets in, as it is quite high yielding for such a leisure destination.

You can also go to Qantas.com and purchase an SFO-PPT ticket on American and Air Tahiti... it may be quite expensive but you'll earn nearly 10'000 miles towards you next ticket. You MUST purchase an AA flight carrying the QF code or an AA flight on the LAX-SFO flight, and an Air Tahiti Nui flight carrying the QF code, otherwise you will earn nothing... Just another secret to beating the FFP programs.

Or you could just get a ticket on Hawaiian Airlines (SFO-HNL-PPT)... you'll be able to earn miles on AA (albeit not the elite mile you may want)