Booking Fiji Airways' Regional Network on Points

I casually viewed FJ’s route network on FlightConnections recently and never really realized the extent of their regional route network in Polynesia and Micronesia. Never quite thought about it beyond YVR-NAN-Australia before.

I do want to visit the far corners of Oceania, but the main thing that always daunted me was that for a lot of these places, flights are few and far between in terms of timing, and I find it difficult to justify spending a week in some of these places given that I don’t scuba dive or spearfish.

These are working notes on routes that might make shorter visits practical using points. I’m mainly looking for:

• reasonably priced awards into an island;
• an onward or return flight after two or three nights; and
• an “escape option” that does not involve paying $600+ in cash on a non-alliance airline.

You’ll probably notice I’m working backwards from flights to destination on purpose, as opposed to picking a destination first, so click away if that sounds like absurdist min-maxxing. I kinda just realized that a lot of my trip planning reads almost like a comparison chart.

From HNL #

FJ’s fifth freedom flights from HNL (Honolulu, Hawaii) interested me the most because I can easily reposition there. They run HNL-APW (Apia, Samoa) and HNL-CXI (Christmas Island, Kiribati).

HNL-APW runs on Thurs (arriving Saturday because of the International Date Line!), and likewise APW-HNL runs on Friday. There are daily flights from APW to NAN so continuing onto NAN seems like the logical option. AS prices at 27.5k miles for Y, and I couldn’t seem to find any space exposed in BA.

HNL-CXI has the dubious honour of having pretty wide space, especially in J. HNL-CXI runs on Tuesdays and CXI-HNL departs on Wednesdays. There’s just barely enough time to stay overnight potentially on this route. The same aircraft continues onto NAN on those respective days, so CXI is genuinely served only once a week compared to APW. 12.5k on Alaska for Y, 15k occasionally for J on Alaska. BA prices at 24.5k Avios but doesn’t seem to expose Y fares for some reason.

From NAN #

• NAN-TRW (Kiribati) seems like a great deal, at 7.5k AS for a distance of 1353mi. Flights seem to be twice a week, Tu/Fri.
• NAN-HIR (Solomon Islands) is priced similarly, 7.5k AS at 1301mi, but only runs on Wednesdays. Regular flights to BNE via Qantas too.
• NAN-NOU (New Caledonia, France) probably interests me the most. 787mi from NAN for 7.5k AS. I have not been to France yet so visiting an overseas French collectivity as my first foray with France sounds almost comical. Award availibility is a bit more sparse on this route versus ex-Australia at the time of writing.
• NAN-VLI (Vanuatu) runs daily, a bit closer at 601mi. Daily flights. 7.5k AS.
• NAN-TBU is even closer (539mi) Tonga, same pricing at 7.5k AS, runs near daily (ex-Sun).¹

Just in terms of departure regularity from these airports, these airports seem to have near-daily flights out available via points bookings: VLI, NOU, TBU. I’m considering Qantas in the escape options.

Thoughts so far #

Starting off, I’d probably do YVR-NAN, with a 2 night stopover in Nadi, before continuing onto TRW. I can stay 2 nights before transiting back to NAN and connecting to APW.

On the return, I’d probably want to do NAN-APW-HNL, simply because that way I can effectively bake in Samoa as a stopover point versus flying once more to NAN to return home.

Tarawa contains half of Kiribati’s population (it’s the capital) and seems to have just enough to do for 3 nights. My only fear is that Samoa deserves more than 2 days, the landscape looks stunning.

Other notes #

I ruled out Tuvalu. NAN-FUN is just under 650mi, yet seems to have zero reasonably priced award availability. Costs about 52.5k on AA for economy. The redemption rate compared to cash is about $0.006/AA mile so I think I’d rather pay cash.