How I Booked a Vacation in Bora Bora (Almost) for Free by Using Points and Miles

Courtesy Conrad Bora Bora Nui

Flying in business class to a faraway bucket-list destination like Bora Bora and staying in an overwater bungalow can take years of planning and saving. But it doesn’t have to. With credit card points and miles, you’ll often find some of the best deals and availability for free flights and stays within a month—or even a couple weeks—of your travel dates, making a last-minute trip to a paradise in the South Pacific a lot more realistic than it sounds.

Last November, as a holidays-on-the-beach devotee, I’d already used points to book a December trip to Cabo for myself and my husband. But some casual browsing on the Hilton website turned into a total revamp of our plans once I saw something I wasn't expecting: wide open availability for Bora Bora. All it took was a few flight and hotel cancellations, some points transfers from credit cards, and a bit of quick rebooking to pull it off.

Here’s a rundown of how the trip came together (almost) for free.

Booking the Conrad Bora Bora Nui

Ever since I stayed at the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island, I knew I eventually wanted to visit the Conrad Bora Bora Nui to see how the properties compared. So from time to time, using the flexible award search calendar on Hilton’s booking website (Conrad hotels are part of the Hilton Honors program), I would scope out upcoming availability.

While looking for 2024 dates, I noticed a stretch of four nights at the end of December available at the standard—in other words, lowest—rate of 120,000 points per night for a King Lagoon View Suite. Because Hilton uses a dynamic pricing model for points redemptions, award rates and availability can change at any time. I committed to checking back every day that week to see if two more nights opened up—for a total of six nights—and sure enough, within a couple days, they did.

Credit cards were a big help in planning this trip. Between my husband and me, we have two Hilton Honors American Express Aspire credit cards, two Hilton Honors American Express Surpass credit cards, and a Hilton Honors American Express Business Card, all of which we use to rack up annual free night certificates. These certificates would have worked beautifully for this trip to Bora Bora, given that Hilton does not cap their value, allowing you to use them at nearly any of its hotels worldwide.

However, I used points that I earned with those cards instead so I could take advantage of Hilton’s fifth night free perk, where any stay that consists of at least five nights is discounted by the cost of one night (the one with the lowest points value). This perk is available to Hilton elites when booking with points; our top-tier Diamond status is an automatic benefit for all Aspire card holders.

So instead of paying 720,000 points for six nights, we paid 600,000 points. In all, those points got us a stay that would have cost $8,755.96 in cash.

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.

Though I didn’t book through United, I was still able to call and add my MileagePlus number to the reservation, enabling me to use the perks of my elite status. I booked both myself and my husband into the exit row for free, just as I normally would when booking through United.

The best part? Air Canada charged 20,000 fewer miles than United would have for the exact same flights, bringing the total we spent to return from Tahiti to Portland via San Francisco in economy class to 35,000 miles and just over $100 in fees each.

Booking inter-island travel and accommodations

Of course, Tahiti and Bora Bora are entirely separate islands in French Polynesia, meaning we had to travel between them. Air Tahiti operates several daily flights, but we arrived from San Francisco too late at night to take any of them. We chose to stay overnight at the Hilton Tahiti and take an early morning flight to Bora Bora the following day. Points would have been a great option here, but since I had other plans for the rest of my Hilton Honors points (specifically a Round 2 of the dog-friendly road trip through the American Southwest I took the year prior), I opted instead to pay about $400 out of pocket for one night.

Our other out-of-pocket expenses were the Air Tahiti flights, which wound up totaling around $400 per person roundtrip, from Tahiti to Bora Bora. If I’d had ample Capital One miles available through my Capital One Venture X card, I could have retroactively erased the travel charge from my statement. But since I didn’t, we paid for the flights with the Chase Ink Business Preferred card, which earns three points per dollar on travel purchases.

The bottom line

All in all, the booking experience was a great reminder of a few key tenets in the world of points and miles. First, if you’ve already missed the boat on booking early and can afford to be flexible and wait until what many deem the last minute, it can pay off. Second, elite status is great for upgrades, but there’s more to it than that. It can also help you save points and miles, as in the case of Hilton’s fifth-night-free perk and United’s discounted award tickets. And finally, the airline flying the plane is often not the airline charging the fewest points for the flight; leveraging partner programs and comparing rates can help your points go further—perhaps all the way to Bora Bora.

Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler