Question re Tahiti redemption

[ffhound]

Hi all

I have recently started carrying Krisflyer miles with my Kris+ app, Pelago and also signing up for a Star Alliance credit card.
I was looking around at options for using the points and noted that the Krisflyer Star Alliance chart round trip award chart is usually more expensive than using the Singapore Airways chart.

However I stumbled across a quirk. Both Australia and Tahiti are located in the same region which is South West Pacific and Air New Zealand, a Star Alliance member, fly between these two places. According to the chart you only need 29000 miles for an economy round trip ticket and 76000 for a business class round trip ticket. That's not that hard to accrue.

Tahiti is an exotic location and would normally cost more in points and/or cash to get there on other frequent fyer programs. Am I reading the chart correctly and if so/more importantly how easy is it to find award seats on that route?

Thanks Peter

 

[kamchatsky]

You read the Star Alliance chart correctly. You need to find award seats on Air NZ from Australia to New Zealand (Auckland) and NZ AKL-PPT (Papeete - Tahiti).

I used to get free stopover at New Zealand on Star Alliance award return ticket. Not sure if this is still applicable now.

So I booked SYD-AKL(stopover)-PPT return NZ Business class return using KrisFlyer miles 15 years ago, and some creative routing like SYD-WLG(stopover)-AKL-PPT(destination)- AKL-SYD, all on NZ. At that time the chart was even better than now. I could even do

Your biggest challenge is to find award seats on NZ on AKL-PPT. There are few flights on this route so award would be hard to find.