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Tahiti, an island typically known as an exotic honeymoon destination, is now a bit more affordable for families and casual travelers alike. Air Tahiti Nui is now offering a limited-time sale that’s extended to July 10, 2016, which offers travelers a trip to New Zealand or Australia with free stopovers in Tahiti. From Los Angeles (LAX), fares are starting at $1,098 to New Zealand and $1,498 to Australia. If your destination is New Zealand, you get a stopover in Tahiti in both directions, and if your destination is Australia, you’ll get two Tahiti stopovers and one New Zealand stopover.
You can travel any time from October 2, 2016 to March 31, 2017, with December 9-27 being blacked out. We called to try and book this promotion, and it seems like Air Tahiti Nui is opening up availability on most flights during this time period for the promotion, regardless of the actual ticket cost. The one caveat is that the New Zealand to Australia add-on flights, should you choose this option, must be flown on either Emirates or Qantas in the ‘T’ and ‘Q’ class, respectively. Emirates operates two fifth-freedom flights to Auckland (AKL) daily, one from Sydney (SYD) and one from Melbourne (MEL).
Since the offer will not be around for more than 72 hours, we’ve condensed the sign-up process to three simple steps:
Step 1: Call the airline — (855) 837-9669 and mention the “Two Countries for the Price of One — New Zealand and Tahiti” promotion (the representative was familiar with it).
Step 2: Give the representative your dates and exact itinerary. It is helpful to have flight numbers picked out ahead of time so you can feed them to the agent. You must travel on Air Tahiti Nui for the LAX-PPT and PPT-AKL segments. From AKL to Australia, you must travel on either Emirates or Qantas. Make sure that you don’t violate the five-day stopover rule in Tahiti on either end, and that your total trip is fewer than 45 days. If you wish to go to another island like Bora Bora, you cannot combine other flights to this promotion, so book those separately. Lastly, give the representative the name of the hotel you want to stay at. Le Meridien is a Starwood Property and the InterContinental is an IHG property, so you could get elite benefits at those resorts.
Step 3: Once you pay for your airfare (you can do a free 24-hour hold if you’d like), you’ll receive an email voucher for your free three-day hotel stay. Fill out this form within one week of ticketing to have the voucher accepted by the hotel. You should receive a separate hotel confirmation.
Maximize Your Purchase
Don’t forget to use a credit card that earns additional points on airfare purchases, such as the American Express Premier Rewards Gold or Citi Prestige (3x on airfare), or the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card (2x on all travel purchases). Check out this post for more on maximizing airfare purchases.
Source: thepointsguy.com