French Polynesia Trip Report Part 1 – ATL To LAX In DL Business Class And Andaz West Hollywood

In this series of posts I’ll detail a two week trip to French Polynesia.  For this trip we used 150k Delta miles each to fly on Delta and Air France in business class.  For hotels we used points and cash to stay at the Andaz West Hollywood, Hilton Moorea, InterContinental Bora Bora, Le Meridien Tahiti, and Ritz Carlton LA.

French Polynesia Trip Report:

1. ATL > LAX in DL Business Class and an over night at the Andaz West Hollywood
2. LAX > PPT in Air France Business Class and ferry to Moorea
3. Hilton Moorea
4. Moorea Activities
5. InterContinental Bora Bora
6. Villa Mahana Restaurant Bora Bora
7. Le Meridien Tahiti
8. Ritz Carlton LAX and LAX > ATL in DL Business Class

To begin I booked my ticket to French Polynesia using Delta miles, see this post for a demonstration on how I redeemed miles for the flights.  This was the second best trip I’ve ever booked using DL miles, the trip to the Seychelles, Mauritius, and Paris in 2009 was definitely was my best redemption using DL miles.

Click The Picture Below To See The Trip Map Animation

Delta ATL > LAX

We checked in using the Business Elite line and had no issues through security.  We went directly to the club lounge and our plane happened to be directly next to the club lounge so we had a good view of the plane prior to departure. We departed on a Friday from ATL to LAX on a Delta 767 in seats 4 A and 4B.  The flight was a standard domestically configured 767 with in seat entertainment systems.  The flight was on time and no major remarks other than the infamous Dog in lap incident I posted about here.

Here is a picture of the plane that took us over to LAX.

Another picture of the little “medical alert” dog breathing on her seat mate

Andaz Hollywood

We decided on spending the night in the Andaz West Hollywood to break up the journey to French Polynesia.  We took a taxi to the Andaz (~$50) and were efficiently checked in.  We were given a large city view room.  The room was on the larger size facing the street.  Initially this concerned me due to the many reports of the morning protests by the hotel employees.  The morning came and sure enough the protesters starting banging pots and pans and screaming “time to wake up” at 9:30 AM.  The room we had was on the end and on the second to top floor so we could only hear the noise if we opened the window.  Eventually the cops showed up and the noise quickly stopped.

The room was spacious, clean and modern, but gave the feeling of a renovated Day’s Inn.  It was a similar feeling to the W Lake Shore in Chicago (which actually used to be a Day’s Inn).  We enjoyed free breakfast as a Diamond member and complimentary non-alcoholic drinks from the mini-bar.

The Diamond breakfast amenity was fantastic.  We choose from the buffet and each ordered a hot plate off of the menu.  Both were completely complimentary as a Diamond member.

We hung out by the pool in a cabana and enjoyed a day of California weather before heading to the Bliss Spa at the W to take advantage of our certificates from the Spa Finder deal. Before heading to the airport we had dinner at the Delphine Brasserie in the W hotel and really enjoyed it.  Then we headed to the airport around 7 PM to catch our evening flight to PPT.

W Hotel Lobby

Bottom Line

The Delta flight was great, especially with the entertainment systems where we could watch unlimited movies on demand.  The Andaz was a great place to spend the day and a good use of points.  However for a stop over at the LAX airport it wasn’t very convenient to pay for the taxi ride to and from the Andaz, the taxi cost was almost as much as we paid to stay at the Ritz Carlton in LA stay on the return leg.  Using the Spa Finder certificates for a day at the Bliss spa was a great way to spend the day before a long ~ 9 hour flight.

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Mile / Point Summary:

Delta – 300,000 Sky Miles (150,000 each ticket)

Hyatt – 15,000 Hyatt Points

Full disclosure: My blog was not disclosed to any of the travel providers and I only received benefits offered to elite members of the programs I’m a member of including Delta, SPG, Hilton, InterContinental, Hyatt, and Ritz Carlton.

Need Some Extra Points & Miles For A French Polynesian Award Vacation?

- Sign up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred 40k offer, Chase Ink Plus 50k offer and Chase Ink Bold 50k offer.  Ultimate Rewards good for points or miles.

- Sign up for the Delta Gold Skymiles from American Express for 30,000 bonus Skymiles after you spend $500 in three months. Then supplement your existing Delta miles for an award to French Polynesia on Air France. This card comes with a $0 annual fee the first year then a $95 fee after the first year. Check your first bag for free on every Delta flight. Receive Zone 2 priority boarding on Delta flights

- Sign up for the SPG Personal American Express card and the SPG Business American Express card for 25,000 SPG points each. Then you can transfer the points into 60,000 Delta Skymiles to help with an award ticket to French Polynesia on Air France.

Points, Miles & Martinis will earn a small referral credit for successful applications through the links in this post. As always we appreciate any support for the blog.