See last week's post on getting to French Polynesia with American miles.

This post will be about getting to French Polynesia–Tahiti, Bora Bora, and more–with Delta SkyMiles. This is an award I get asked to book frequently through my Award Booking Service, and I wanted to share some free tips.

French Polynesia is a French-speaking “overseas country” controlled by France. It is south of Hawaii and east of Australia. The main tourist spots are Tahiti, Bora Bora, and Mo’orea. People go to French Polynesia for the absolutely stunning beach-and-island landscape.

Lufthansa has started to display flights from Los Angeles <-> Frankfurt as being operated by a fancy new 747-8, starting December 10, 2012. I've talked a little about Lufthansa's 747-8s before--see Get on an A380, 787 Dreamliner, and New 747-8 on one United Award--and I love them for a few reasons.

First, it's in the beautiful, iconic 747 line. Second, it is a brand new plane, so it has those improvements like bigger bins, bigger windows, LED lighting, and better fuel mileage.

In February from Nairobi, Kenya, I booked an American Airlines award 331 days out from Melbourne, Australia to Los Angeles in Qantas business class (with a later free oneway to Tampa.) See my Anatomy of an Award post on that booking.

On that booking, I noticed something odd about the way that American Airlines releases its domestic award space on some routes.

This is based on a classic post from bengalimilesguru.com that Scott has edited, updated, and expanded, so it is current as of publication.

Reader Maya sent me an article from One Mile at A Time where Lucky broke the news that Delta is currently not charging high fuel surcharge fees for travel with Virgin Australia!

US Airways and American Airlines have merged since the publication of this post so it is no longer valid.

US Airways has some incredible deals on its award chart. I've talked about off peak awards, South America deals, and intra-South Asia before.

I've got a thriving Award Booking Service. I hold myself out as an expert on the nuances of award-booking rules, and yet I don't know United's award booking rules. Let me explain.

On February 10, 2011, someone believed to be a United employee posted on FlyerTalk that the new routing rule for United awards would be that the actual routing you choose can exceed MPM by no more than 15%.

For those who don't know: MPM (Maximum Permitted Mileage) is the maximum length that a routing on a paid ticket between an origin/destination city pair can be.

US Airways miles stink because their routing rules and fees are frustrating.

But US Airways miles are incredible because the award chart is so generous. I've talked about sweet spots here and here.

Overall, the sweet spots on the award chart and US Airways off peak awards more than make up for the routing restrictions, so I value US Airways miles more highly than any other airline mile at 1.95 cents each.

If you use US Airways miles correctly, you can reap incredible value.

My Award Booking Service has been too successful. People have responded to the low prices, excellent service, and searching skill with enthusiasm.

Over the past few weeks, I've been getting so many requests, I've struggled to keep up with all of them on top of maintaining this blog. I didn't want to cut back on the blog or raise my price to lower the number of requests I got. And luckily I won't have to.

A few months ago I met Tahsir, the Bengali Miles Guru. Tahsir rose to prominence by offering free award booking services on FlyerTalk.

Delta only allows you to hold an itinerary if you don't have enough miles in the account to ticket at that moment. (If you sweet talk the right agent, you might get a hold even if you have enough miles, but it's not easy.)

Here's a trick to avoid this annoying policy if you have enough miles in your account to ticket the award you want.

Call Delta at 800-323-2323.
Instead of giving the SkyMiles account number you'll be using, give the account number of a friend that has very few miles.

This is Part 2 of my two-part post on using AA miles to get to Australia and New Zealand. Read Part 1 first.

Here are a few more ways to get to Australia and New Zealand with American miles.

Air Tahiti Nui and Air Pacific: Connect in the Middle of Nowhere

One horribly annoying rule when redeeming AA miles is that your award cannot transit a region other than the origin region and destination region unless explicitly permitted.