Bora Bora Vacation on Points

We are just back from a 6 night trip to Bora Bora, staying 5 nights at the St. Regis Bora Bora and one night at the Westin Bora Bora. We also spent an afternoon at IHG’s InterContinental Tahiti Resort. I’m going to break down how we booked everything and compare all of these (fantastic) options.

Using points & miles to visit Bora Bora

Denver – LAX (repositioning flight): 16K Southwest points + $16.80 for 3 people
LAX – Tahiti: Air Tahiti Nui business class 60K points per person + $18.10 (booked via Alaska Airlines)
Tahiti – Bora Bora – Air Tahiti, cash $350ish per person roundtrip
St Regis Bora Bora – 5 nights, 502K Marriott points & $30 tax/fees. PLUS we paid $500/night for overwater villa upgrade
Westin Bora Bora – 1 night, 2 rooms, used 2 85K Marriott free night certificates + 5K points per room & $120 per room taxes/fees
InterContinental Tahiti Resort – day pass to use pool afternoon of flight out, $85 per person which also included a drink and tapas at the hotel
Tahiti – LAX – Air Tahiti Nui business class 60K points per person + $69.91 (booked via Alaska Airlines)
LAX – Denver (repositioning flight): 15K Southwest points + $16.80 for 3 people

Totals for 3 people:

Southwest points used: 31K
American Express points used: 360K
Marriott points used: 512
Certificates used: 2 Marriott 85K free night certificates

Cash out of pocket: $4371
not including food or tours

Costs covered with points:
St Regis Bora Bora: $15,800
Air Tahiti Nui Flights: $22,500
Westin Bora Bora: $3900
Southwest Flights: $660

Air Tahiti Nui business class on points

In March 2025, I booked 3 business class award flights for February 2026. At the time, I was able to transfer American Express points to Hawaiian and then move those points from Hawaiian to Alaska Airline to book these flights. Unfortunately, that option is no longer available. Your best option now is to either earn Alaska miles directly with an Atmos card (Alaska Airline card) or earn Bilt points and transfer those Bilt points to Alaska Airlines.

When booking Air Tahiti Nui award flights via Alaska, you’ll need to call Air Tahiti Nui to select your seats. Middle seats have aisle access. Window seats will have to step over aisle person to get out.

It can be really hard to find availability flying business class from the US to Tahiti. I highly recommend signing up for an alert newsletter like Thrifty Traveler (use code Fancy at checkout to get $20 off 1st year premium subscription). I have found in the past that award availability tends to drop in chunks and it’s few & far between – so it’s really important to get an alert when that happens.

Air Tahiti Nui Business Class Review:
I would 100% fly this flight again. While the business class seats don’t have much privacy, they are lay-flat and quite comfortable. The service was absolutely incredible. Food was hit or miss. But currently, these flights leave late at night and get to destination very early, so just using the flight for sleep is perfect!

St. Regis Bora Bora on points

BOOKING WITH POINTS:
We used 502K Marriott points + $30 (taxes/fees) to book a Reef side villa for 5 nights at the St. Regis Bora Bora. I specifically booked with St. Regis because their standard rooms allow occupancy of 3. Then after booking, I emailed St. Regis at reservations1@stregis.com and asked what the price would be to upgrade to an overwater villa. I was given many different choices and went with the cheapest option – Overwater Superior Villa, Lagoon view – which was about $500/night to upgrade to.

**Remember, with Marriott stays, the 5th night is free on 5 night point stays (needs to be consecutive and all points, not free night certificates)

When you arrive in Bora Bora (the tiniest airport), you walk over to the St Regis Bora Bora desk and they give you a flower lei and load your bags onto the boat. The boat transfer is $84 each way, per person. The boat ride takes about 15 minutes. When you get on the boat you are given a cold water and cold towel. Basically the best way to travel 🙂

Arrival:
Upon arrival at the resort, a butler is waiting on the dock for you. Your bags are taken to your room and your personal butler takes you on a golf cart tour of the property. There were 2 other couples on our boat ride over. Upon arrival, they split everyone up so that some people were doing their tour, some people were checking in. So when it was time to check in, there was no wait and it was very private. I loved this smart luxury touch. And… We were thrilled that our room was ready at 10am when we arrived!

Rooms:
The rooms are very large, over 1500 square feet. I read so many times that the rooms are in huge need of an upgrade and I’ll admit it – I don’t see that at all. It’s a lot of dark beautiful wood, very French Polynesian style. All of the furniture in our room mostly looked new. The bathroom is where I do think it’s dated, but still it’s huge and well maintained. Standard rooms have 3 person occupancy – so much better than most Bora Bora resorts which only allow 2!!

Welcome Amenity:
We are only Marriott Gold level. But they still left us a beautiful set of 5 treats in glass jars and a light rum and a dark rum plus a carafe of juice.

Each person gets a shell necklace upon departure and each family a shell magnet. There’s also a canvas tote in your room to take that has a mini canvas bag in it too.

Overwater Villa:
I am so glad we splurged and upgraded to the overwater villa. Waking up to that incredible blue lagoon view each morning was pinch me luxury. The deck has 2 loungers (with cushions) and a table with 4 chairs. We spent a ton of time on this deck.

Dining:
To view St Regis Bora Bora restaurant menus with pricing, use this link.

Aparima Bar – We ate here 3 times for lunch and 2 times for dinner during their “grill night”. This was the most casual restaurant and our favorite. We loved the burger, chicken club, fish club, Tahitian ahi tuna (OMG, so good!), and the French fries (again, so good!)

Lagoon – This is the fine dining restaurant. We ate dinner here one night & it’s our 2nd favorite restaurant. We did the truffle mashed potatoes as an appetizer to share and we loved them! Also really loved the catch of the day (mahi mahi on our day).

Farniente – The Italian restaurant. Good overall. Not amazing. Gnocchi was good but too heavy.

Bamboo – The Asian restaurant. By far my least favorite. My son’s fried rice was so bland. My Kung Pao Chicken was overly salty.

What makes St Regis Bora Bora so special?

BIKES! Every villa is assigned their own bikes for each person – they even have kid size bikes. The resort is large and having a bike to go quickly from tennis to the gym to the villa to lunch, etc was just a dream. And no one takes your bike because each bike has a villa number on it.

FRENCH PRESS DELIVERY: Every single morning, you will have drip coffee or French press (you choose) delivered to your room (no charge) at your requested time. For my 14 year old son they brought a giant glass of milk (which he loved b/c… protein). This morning luxury was out of this world.

SERVICE: Having a butler was great, but we didn’t use them often. However, the service from everyone at this resort is perfect. The lunch staff remembering our names and drink orders made you feel so welcomed. The beach staff with high energy and a fist bump calling out, hey my guy! When a golf cart would pass you they would absolutely slow down and make sure you have plenty of space. The service was that perfect level of here for you but not overbearing or fake.

MARINE LIFE: I think we had a family of 3 turtles living near our villa – we saw them every day and they were amazing to watch. We also saw sting rays and long blue fish everyday. One afternoon we even had a visit from a black tip shark!

ACTIVITIES: -I think we played tennis everyday. You can schedule court time and pick up rackets from the front reception. There is cold water at the courts. Everything was in great shape and we loved the grass court.
-St Regis also has a private lagoonarium with some coral and fish that is fun to check out. Would be great for younger kids. The resort provides snorkel and mask and fins to use to use for your entire stay.
-At the beach there are stand up paddle boards and kayaks you can use no fee.
-On certain nights they do champagne sabering – you watch this and then everyone gets a free glass of champagne.
-There are free actives on certain days – one day we made flower crowns and leis.

PRESSING: Everyday you can have 2 items pressed at no charge. One morning I gave it to our butler while she was delivering our French press and then it just appeared back in our villa, pressed that afternoon.

Things we didn’t love:
– I had a lovely massage at the spa, which was so good. But the spa facility itself is pretty boring/bare.
– I wish food was more consistent.
– The patio bar in front of Lagoon is closed several days a week, but this is the perfect place for a pre-dinner drink so it’s a bummer it’s closed a lot.
– The pool really has no view and the water felt almost like a hot tub.

Overall Rating: 9.5/10
One of our favorite, most luxurious vacations ever. The resort felt empty. The service was unmatched. Yes, some food was mediocre and all of it was veryyyyy expensive – but I would pounce at the opportunity to visit again. Between the biking back from dinner with the abundance of palm trees lit perfectly to the massive villa to the French press with a view every morning – it was just special on top of special on top of special. Total White Lotus vibes. Being able to book a luxury stay like this on points is unreal!

Westin Bora Bora on Points

BOOKING WITH POINTS:
You can often find the Westin Bora Bora for less than 90K points a night. Which makes it a really good use of your Marriott points considering you get the 5th night free on points stays (5 consecutive nights, all points). BUT what is even better is that you can use your 85K Marriott free night certificates here almost any night, since you can top off Marriott 85K free night certificates with up to 15K points. My husband and I each have the Ritz Carlton card. And just by holding that card, we get an 85K Marriott free night certificate – EVERY year! When our flight out of Tahiti changed to a night flight, that meant we could spend one extra night in Bora Bora – yes please! This resort does have a higher resort fee ($120/night), but it includes boat transfers to and from the airport!

ARRIVAL: There is a boat shuttle from St. Regis to Westin everyday at noon. It’s about a 5 minute boat ride as these resorts are right next to each other. You arrive to someone playing a ukulele on the dock and a golf cart waiting to take you to reception. We arrived with just one other couple and were both helped immediately. Then a few more families showed up right after us and they had to wait for check in. It definitely felt a bit chaotic. After check in, you will hop on a golf cart and get a resort tour and they drop you off at your villa. We had booked 2 rooms and 1 was ready which was fantastic!

ROOMS: Unfortunately Westin Bora Bora has a room occupancy of 2 for most of their rooms. And the option to book a standard award room then pay to upgrade to a room fitting 3 wasn’t an option. For this reason, we had to book 2 rooms. This resort just recently changed from a Meridian to a Westin and so everything has been updated. BUT the standard award rooms allow you to choose an overwater bungalow with no paying to upgrade – that’s huge. The villas are about 440 square feet, very modern and beautiful rooms with the bathroom sink and tub part of the open floor plan but the shower and toilet behind doors.

 

WELCOME AMENITY: We only have gold status with Marriott but let them know we are celebrating our 18th wedding anniversary. In our first room there was a bottle of champagne with a lovely note. In our 2nd room there was ALSO a bottle of champagne, a small chocolate cake, flower petals everywhere and a lovely note! WOW!

Everyone gets a Westin water bottle at check in. And there’s a Westin beach tote in the room you can take as well.

OVERWATER VILLA: The fact that you can book these with under 100K points most nights is pretty amazing! The outdoor space didn’t feel very private and we got one luckily in the deep water but some of the villas are in water that is much more shallow (like waist deep)

DINING: We were only there 1 night and had both our lunch and dinner at their most casual restaurant Varavara. This is their beachside dining and there are seats literally in the sand which was very cool. We enjoyed 90% of the things we tried here. The biggest difference was the service. For lunch we had incredible service but for dinner there was a language barrier and we were brought items we didn’t order.

ACTIVITIES: -You can use the paddle boards and kayaks at the beach for no charge.
-There are daily activities like rum tasting that are free.

What makes Westin Bora Bora so special?

POOL: The pool here is infinity style that overlooks the lagoon with a view of Mount Otemanu. That was incredibly special! We loved this pool but there was absolutely no shade and very little breeze (due to the building directly behind it).

ECO FRIENDLY: There are water bottle refill stations throughout the property (with ice too, yay!).

NEW: I really can’t overstate how updated this property is – everything is new and sleek and beautiful.

Things we didn’t love:
– This property is supposed to have bikes but apparently all of them are in the shop. We saw 2. One of the pool guys told us it’s because they bought bikes where the chains rust with the weather and so there’s basically no bikes to use now.
– Golf carts seem to have the right away and the employees didn’t really slow when they passed you.
– Our checkout time was 10am to catch the boat for our flight. Because we had 2 rooms, I packed up one room first then went to the 2nd room to finish. When I went back to my room at 9:50, there was someone cleaning the room (bed stripped, items in trash, mid clean) and my luggage was gone b/c they saw it sitting there and took it – EVEN though it wasn’t 10 and even though I wasn’t there. I had more stuff to put in my luggage from the other room and it was just reallllly frazzling.

Overall Rating: 9/10
Again, we’d jump at the opportunity to stay here again. But the service was lacking in certain areas. And the overwater decks on the villas didn’t feel very private. However, the pool and view is a dream.

St Regis Bora Bora or Westin Bora Bora?

Let’s be honest, if you have an opportunity to stay at either of these properties, you should jump on it. But for us the luxury level, huge rooms, sea life, tennis and bikes at St. Regis Bora Bora gives it the edge. My son also said the gym at St. Regis was much better.

Tips for saving money in Bora Bora & etc.

• We didn’t have breakfast included for our stays. We packed granola bars and oatmeal in our luggage. We also packed a plethora of snacks and even tuna (in pouches, not cans). We chose to eat our from home food for breakfast then just eat lunch & dinner at the restaurants.
• At lunch we usually shared 2 meals – especially the meals with fries are good for this – the serving of fries at both restaurants is big (HUGE at Westin!).
• Bring your own alcohol to enjoy in your villa! Many people pack this in their luggage. But this wasn’t an option for us since we are carry-on only. We bought wine at LAX duty free. They give you the receipt and meet you at your gate with your purchase. It’s all bagged up and easy to carry. You put the bags in the overhead compartment on the LAX to Tahiti flight. Then in Tahiti, you put it through the luggage scanner. They will open the bag and make sure you didn’t open the bottles. Then they hand it back to you and you put it in the overhead on your flight to Bora Bora. Seriously so easy!
• St Regis serves bread baskets at lunch and dinner. And they are happy to refill.
• Both resorts have tap water for an option with dining. Definitely do this as a bottle of water is $12!!
• Bring a raft and rope so you can tie your raft up to your villa and relax. Our St. Regis butler told us they had plenty to use if we hadn’t brought it from other guests who leave them behind.
• About 15% of the families we saw at St. Regis had small children. We only saw 1 child at Westin (but also we were only there for 1 day).
• On the day of your departure – back to the Bora Bora airport – pack your water bottle full with ice & water – there is NO security at this airport so bringing your liquids through is not a problem. You literally check in and wait to board.
• Speaking of boarding, on the flights between Tahiti & Bora Bora (on Air Tahiti or Air Moana), there are no assigned seats. You probably want to line a bit early up so you don’t get separated.
• Also, on that flight between Tahiti & Bora Bora, sit on left side for best views. On the way back (Bora Bora to Tahiti) sit on the right side for best views.
• We flew back to Tahiti from Bora Bora on an early afternoon flight but our flight wasn’t until 9:30pm. So we did a day pass at Intercontinental Tahiti. The Tahiti airport is small, hot and doesn’t have much open so you want to spend as little time there before your flight as possible.
• Want a good idea of how crowded the airport will be? Check the flight schedule.

How to find best points options for Bora Bora

I wrote a step-by-step blog post for you showing exactly how we found our award flight deals to Bora Bora and how you can find the best points nights at Marriotts. Hope that helps!