Tag: Hilton Honours

Honeymoon in Bora Bora: The Ultimate Bucket List Destination

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Overwater bungalows with pool Bora Bora

Bora Bora is on most peoples bucket lists, and for good reason. This place is what dreams are made of. It is quite insane to believe that somewhere as beautiful as Bora Bora exists on our Earth. The clearest turquoise water you will ever see. The amazing mountains that rise tall above all resort. Not to leave out the breathtaking lagoon and snorkeling. A honeymoon in Bora Bora is what honeymoon dreams are made of.

It was on our bucket list for many years. Finally we made the plunge to go for a Honeymoon in Bora Bora. Was it expense? Of course. Was it worth it? Every penny.

If you need the encouragement to go, maybe for a honeymoon or anniversary, keep reading this post for inspiration pictures.

Accomodation – which Bora Bora hotel?

Bora Bora is famous for being the island of overwater bungalows. It would be wasted to not stay in an overwater bungalow for some of the days you are there. It is possible to do a combination of both land and overwater bungalow, you will just put through two bookings. The hotels are extremely used to people doing this.

The two hotels we were deciding between were Four Seasons Bora Bora and Conrad Bora Bora. These are two of the best hotels in the world. After much research, we decided to stay in the Conrad Bora Bora. This was due to a few different reasons:

  • At the time Conrad had just been refurbished and the rooms looked more modern.
  • We wanted to stay with the same hotel brand in order to maximise the status points. This can potentially get an upgrade (which did happen). See my page How to Obtain Hilton Honors Gold Status Through Status Match.
  • Conrad was in general better value than Four Seasons for the overwater bungalow with a pool. Which meant we could stay one more night.
  • Some people prefer the Four Seasons as you get the clear view of Mount Otemanu. In reality, it really depends on which room in the Four Seasons you are in. In Conrad you can book a room that has the direct view of the mountain. You also see it if you go on a walk around the Conrad resort. Also of course on a boat tour (which is a must).
  • The coral and snorkeling at the Conrad was rumoured to be better. We cannot compare as we did not go to the Four Seasons. However I can confirm the coral and fish around the resort were amazing.

Conrad Bora Bora

In the end, we were extremely happy with our choice of Conrad for our honeymoon in Bora Bora. It was the absolute perfect hotel for our honeymoon. The Conrad Bora Bora is truly one of the best hotels in the world. It has many restaurants, all top notch. Stunning white sand beaches. Butler service by text message. Amazing cocktail bar on the sea (Upa bar). Fire and dancing shows. Huge rooms with vast bath tubs, huge terraces and large private pools. The most beautiful resort pool, with floating lounge chairs and swim up bar. You can entertain yourself by just walking around the property and soaking up the stunning luxury.

We booked a ‘King Overwater pool villa’. When we arrived, we got upgraded to a part Otemanu view pool overwater villa. Most likely this was due to gold Hilton status and availability due to low season. Our villa was also on the end of the line of villas, so we had the utmost privacy.

Time of year

I did a lot of research to understand what the best months for a honeymoon in Bora Bora. In the end we opted for a shoulder season – early-mid April. We had the most amazing weather, perfect temperature, no rain and blue skies.

The flight from Moorea to Bora Bora

I actually had not paid much attention to the domestic flights in French Polynesia, just seeing them as a way of getting from A to B. How wrong I was, this flight is the most beautiful flight I have been on in my life. The views from above are as good as you would get on any sea plane. On a clear day, Mount Otemanu and the surrounding lagoon are so clear and absolutely stunning from above. You can also see all of the overwater bungalows from the many resorts. Just amazing.

From Moorea to Bora Bora you need to sit on the left hand side of the plane to get the best view. From Bora Bora to Tahiti it is the right side. Note that the domestic airlines (we flew with Air Tahiti) have no seat bookings. It is first come best seat. Make sure to get in that queue early to get the correct side of the plane!

Arriving in Bora Bora

You need to make sure you have pre-booking your pick up in Bora Bora. Easiest thing to do is to book directly with the hotel.

The ‘entrance’ for arrival in Bora Bora is unlike any other place on Earth. You go straight from plane to boat. No car, no roads, just straight onto a boat. This unique experience was incredible. The Conrad Bora Bora boat is extremely luxurious, and almost had a James Bond feel. This is a pretty special way to start the holiday!

Once you arrive at the Conrad, you will go to Upabar which is luxury sofas looking onto the endless ocean. It really felt like we were in a movie. Think ‘Couples retreat’, ‘Blended’, or ‘Just go with it’ vibes.

Bora Bora in pictures

All resort photos are taken at Conrad Bora Bora.

Private boat tour

You could easily spend your whole time just chilling in your room or at the pool, reading, snorkeling, eating, drinking cocktails. This needs to be a huge part of your time on the island.

However one activity not to be missed is doing a private boat tour around the island. This will elevate your Honeymoon in Bora Bora to the next level. We booked directly through Moana Adventures website, by email a week prior to the date. The name of the tour we did was ‘Private Shark & Ray, Coral Garden Snorkel Safari’ on a Cap Camarat 25fts.

This was a 3 hour tour, and we opted for the morning so we got picked up directly from Conrad jetty at 9am. The benefit of doing a private tour is you get to slightly tailor your tour on what you want to see. Swimming with Mantarays was high on the bucket list for us, and our tour guide took us to a guarenteed spot right in front of Mount Otemanu. He also later spotted another Mantaray as we were cruising, and stopped for us to jump off the boat to see it.

The snorkelling on this tour was otherworldly. I did not know that coral like that still existed in the world. It was so colourful and amazing.

We ended the tour by swimming with stingrays and reef sharks, where they come up right next to you.

Wow, this day will be a forever memory.

This holiday is the romantic holiday of dreams. You will have an unforgettable experience taking in the beauty of this pacific island.

Leave any comments in case you have any questions.

Check out my blog on Bali for another dream honeymoon location idea.

How to Obtain Hilton Honors Gold Status Through Status Match

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Miricaptures Hilton

This is a guide based on my own recent experience on how to achieve Hilton Honors Gold Status by using their Status Match feature.

Eight months ago I wasn’t even collecting any hotel status or loyalty, I was mainly using hotel.com or booking.com to book all holidays. This all changed when we decided to have a fully splash-out kind of honeymoon (the best kind). However we soon realised how expensive even breakfast is in these hotels, so I started to research our options.

Our honeymoon destinations were New Zealand, Moorea and Bora Bora, the later two being in the super duper Honeymoon capital French Polynesia. In French Polynesia there are a wide range of known hotel chains. However, these are not your bog standard city corporate Hilton or Marriott, these are overwater tropical heaven. You do not even recognise the hotels as their brand. After doing some research and seeing the benefit of staying in the same brand for our honeymoon we decided to stick with Hilton (which includes Conrad brand).

One main advantage of being Gold Status with Hilton Honors is that you automatically get free breakfast. It sounds crazy but if we had paid for breakfast during our honeymoon, that alone would have cost over $1000!

Keep reading on how to get Hilton Honors gold status without needing to spend much to get there.

Step 1: Get gold status loyalty with another hotel brand

Luckily enough, I already had 7 nights with Novotel after a work trip earlier in the year. Novotel is part of Accor group. To reach gold status with Accor requires 30 status nights. However this can actually be achieved without completing all of the nights!

Get 20 free nights with AccorPlus

Most of the time there is an offer on with Accor to sign up for AccorPlus. At the time there was an offer for Accor Plus Traveller Membership for 4000 Accor live points. I had some points with Qatar that were about to expire and saw I could transfer these to Accor. That gave me enough to get this membership without spending a penny.

Screenshot

As you can see with Accor Plus – you get 20 free bonus nights. I do not know any other hotel that does this and this is why Accor was my choice.

As mentioned, in order to get gold status with Accor you need 30 nights. It’s also important to know that Accor has strict timing to achieve the 30 nights, this has to be within the Jan-Dec of the year. At the end of each year status nights get wiped and you have to start collecting again from scratch. The following year your loyalty will be whatever you achieved in the previous year.

I had 3 nights left to reach 30 nights. Two of these nights we completed by booking a local Ibis Budget for under $100 (note yes you do have to check in and out in person). Some Ibis Budget do not count towards Accor status nights, so make sure to check this in the app before hand (when looking at the hotel check for the All Accor tick). The last night we splashed out for a nice end of year night in a city hotel that was on Accor red hot rooms.

Gold status achieved! I don’t want to miss the great things about Accor gold itself: good discount on the hotel restaurants, red hot room deals, and free upgrades if vacancies.

To summarise gold status with Accor:

  • 30 nights are required to be completed in the calendar year to achieve gold.
  • If you achieve gold status in 2024, you will have gold status until the end of 2025.

Step 2: Accor status match with Hilton

Once you achieve gold with another hotel brand, you can then apply for that status match challenge with Hilton. Note that: you only can do this once in your lifetime so choose wisely (e.g. I did it for my honeymoon), also the status match is only for 90 days so time it correctly.

There is normally a deal as well, that if you stay with Hilton for over 8 nights during those 90 days then you can keep your Gold status for at least a year, and 14 nights you get Platinum status for at least a year.

Now let’s talk about the status match procedure. The link to submit the Hilton Honors status match is as follows https://www.hiltonhonors.com/en_US/status-match/landing/.

You will notice that there is no option in the download for Accor, but there is an option for ‘other’. I selected this option and wrote All Accor. You also need to upload the evidence of a recent stay that you have paid for with that hotel brand and proof of your status. Now it is all in their hands, they have no commitment to approve everything.

My status match got approved within 10 days, which I believe is about average timing. Note that as Accor is not in the list, I suspect they may be a bit more picky on this. As I am based in Australia I think this probably helped as there is less loyalty to the Hilton Honours brand here than there would be in the US.

Now once this gets approved all you need to think is….was all of this worth it?

The Answer: Yes…yes it was 🙂

Oh and we ended up with Platinum status until March 2026. So where to next!

Bora Bora Conrad Hotel

Dive into my blog post all about an incredible honeymoon in Bora Bora, featuring tips on accommodations and tips for your vacation.