Update 11/16/24: Transfers from Amex to Hawaiian appear to be back up and running across the board.
~~~
Update 11/15/24: Here we go again. There have been numerous reports of transfers from Amex Membership Rewards to HawaiianMiles having more issues. Like last time, transfers to Hawaiian will go through, but then are refunded within 15 minutes. I tried it with a small 1,000 point transfer and just over five minutes later the points were back in my Membership Rewards account.
I chatted with a rep who said (again) that transfer are being blocked on the Hawaiian side, not the Amex side. My assumption is that this is a temporary issue like last time, but that hasn’t been confirmed by anyone at Amex or Hawaiian.
If someone has been able to successfully complete a transfer, please let us know in the comments…but please wait at least 15 minutes or until the miles appear in your Hawaiian account before reporting.
~~~
Update 9/27/24: We’ve now received multiple reports of folks getting Amex/Hawaiian transfers to work, with the miles displaying instantly in their Hawaiian accounts. It looks like some have been able to do it online even after repeatedly getting error messages and others have been successful via chat rep.
~~~
Uh-oh.
There’s been a lot of anticipation (and speculation) about what would happen with American Express Membership Rewards transfers to Hawaiian Airlines once it became possible to transfer HawaiianMiles to Alaska Mileage Plan. Alaska has never been a partner of a major transferable currency (sorry Bilt), and once transfers became possible from Hawaiian to Alaska, it would effectively mean that you could transfer Membership Rewards to Alaska.
Well, Hawaiian/Alaska transfers are now live…and Amex/Hawaiian isn’t working.
Online, attempts to transfer lead to an error message:
At first I thought that this might be because of increased volume due to the Alaska/Hawaiian transfer going live, but I didn’t have issues with any of Amex’s other partners.
So, I got help from an Amex chat rep and was successfully able to transfer 1,000 points to Hawaiian with their help…only to have those points instantly refunded:
That’s not a good sign.
Quick Thoughts
Greg and Nick discussed whether or not the Amex/Hawaiian transfer would eventually end, and when, on last week’s Frequent Miler on the Air. They both agreed that the most likely scenario would be that it would go away next year sometime when the programs combined, but that there was a small chance it might die as soon as you could move HawaiianMiles to Alaska. Could the longshot actually be happening?
It could still be that this is simply a temporary technical issue. If anyone is able to successfully make a transfer, please let us know in the comments (and tell us if you did it online or with a rep).
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
29 November spoke to Amex and they are saying Hawaiian is no longer a transfer partner. Can anyone confirm?
Just made a transfer at 10:00 eastern time 11/29.
just made a 200k transfer amex to hawaiian to alaska 8:15 PM eastern time. transfers were pretty much instant.
Monday 18 November transferred 120k Amex to Hawaiian to Alaska, all seamlessly and took about 5 min. Let’s goooo!
Just moved 29K points through. I was initially blocked from the HA->AS transfer by Cloudflare: “Sorry, you have been blocked. You are unable to access points.com”. But I tried again two minutes later and was able to access the transfer page on points.com with no issues. Not sure if it was a me issue or a points.com thing. Setting aside that issue, it was instant from AmEx -> Hawaiian, and instant from Hawaiian -> Alaska.
I am on the Amex chat right now trying to transfer 85,000 MR points to Hawaiian after getting an error this morning. They were able to get it to go through for me. The points showed up instantly when they said the transfer was complete! Sweet now 85,000 more points are off to Alaska!
Nov 15 was also the end of the 100% bonus offer for buying Hawaiian points with cash if I remember correctly?
Some coincidence that the issue is fixed right after…
I had a successful transfer on November 1st and when I tried again yesterday, November 15th, the points were returned to my AMEX account. After trying again today, November 16th, the transfer was successful.
its working as of now at 11/16 2:55 PM ET.
It is working for me. I transferred 1K from AmEx to Hawiian this morning no problem. Have subsequently moved it to Alaska. Not sure if it makes a difference, but this was the first transfer I’ve done to Hawaiian in the past 6 weeks.
I instantly transferred 80,000, MR-HA on November 14,2024 and have already used them.
Tried transferring Amex to Hawaiian twice this morning… refunded back both times as others have mentioned.
Tried it 5 times today and all got refunded back to the account. MR > HA not working for me. Contacted both Amex and Hawaiian and both weren’t able to resolve this. HA said to just try again in 24 hours…
Update! It worked for me just now!!
Unsuccessful last night and just now. Hopefully, the Hawaiian Airlines IT dept will be replaced by the Alaska Airlines IT dept after the merger.
lol. AS is by far more incompetent on every level than HA. I hope you get what you are wishing for.
Not from my experience over the past 30 years.
It’s working now!
Transferred 60000 from Amex yesterday, instant! Moved to Alaska a few minutes later along with my new H.A cc bonus.
Just checked my balance at Alaska and the points are still there!
Transfer of 1k from Amex to HA went through on 11/11 for me.
I moved 68,000 Amex points to Hawaiian last night around 8 PM, did not show up. Now, about 15 hours later, still not in my account. It’s supposed to be instant. (Even thought the Amex page says allow 2-3 business days for pretty much everyone).
A bit concerned.
EDIT: They have now showed up. Took about 24 hours. 🙂