Hawaiian miles can be valuable in certain very specific situations. For example, miles can be used to upgrade Hawaiian Airlines flights between the U.S. mainland and Hawaii for 25,000 to 50,000 miles one-way. Or you can use as few as 65,000 miles to fly one-way business class between Hawaii and Japan, Korea, Australia, or New Zealand. Outside of a child-sized handful of sweet-spots, though, Hawaiian miles are not all that useful or valuable. That’s why when we first saw that Amex Membership Rewards was offering a 20% transfer bonus to Hawaiian Airlines through 8/31/24, I didn’t hesitate to say “no thanks.”
But now the Alaska / Hawaiian merger is looking extremely likely to actually happen. And, you may recall that in Alaska’s original announcement, they indicated that Hawaiian’s loyalty program will be integrated into Alaska Mileage Plan. Assuming Hawaiian miles will convert 1 to 1 to Mileage Plan miles, then suddenly the Amex transfer bonus looks compelling…
Alaska Mileage Plan miles are far more useful and valuable than Hawaiian miles. Alaska is part of the oneworld alliance and so its miles can be used to fly any oneworld partner (American Airlines, British Airways, Qatar, Qantas, etc.) when award space is available. Additionally, Alaska has a number of great non-alliance partners where you can spend miles too (Iceland Air, Singapore Airlines, STARLUX, etc.). Pair all that with good award pricing and a free stop-over on one-way awards, and you’ve got a winner.
The biggest negative with Alaska Mileage Plan is that miles aren’t all that easy to earn since none of the major bank-run point programs offer point transfers to Alaska. Only Bilt offers 1 to 1 transfers to Alaska, and Bilt points will soon be harder to earn due to new Rent Day limitations.
So, should we transfer our Amex points to Hawaiian in the hopes that they’ll become Alaska miles?
Before answering that, let’s look at the negatives:
- We don’t know for certain that the merger will go through (but it’s a good bet)
- We don’t know for certain that Alaska will fold HawaiianMiles into its Mileage Plan program (but it’s a good bet).
- We don’t know for certain that miles will convert from Hawaiian Airlines to Alaska at a 1 to 1 ratio (but it’s a good bet).
- For transfers to U.S. based airline programs, like Hawaiian, Amex imposes an absurd “excise tax offset fee” of $0.0006 per point (with maximum fee of $99).
Let’s get more into that excise tax offset fee… It’s not a lot of money and so it probably shouldn’t be the deciding factor for most people. However, if you’re on the fence about whether to do the transfer or not, I think it’s reasonable for that extra charge to dissuade you. Keep in mind, though, that as you transfer more and more points, the cost per point goes down thanks to the $99 maximum fee. You’ll pay 60 cents per 1,000 Amex points transferred, but you’ll hit the cap once you’ve transferred 165,000 points. So, if you transfer twice that many Amex points (330K), your average cost per 1,000 points will drop in half to 30 cents per 1,000.
So, now that we know the downsides, should we transfer our Amex points to Hawaiian or not?
Here are some things to consider:
- Are you a fan of Alaska’s new award charts? I am a fan (especially considering the latest Avios devaluations), but some commenters here are decidedly not.
- Are you willing to take risks with your points? As outlined above, lots of things can go wrong.
- Do you have a large enough stash of Amex points so that even after doing the transfer you will have enough Amex points for other transfer opportunities in the future? I like to have at between 400K and 600K Amex points available at all times and so I’d only consider transferring points above that threshold.
- How much does it irk you that Amex charges to transfer to US-based airline programs? I find it ridiculous that we have to pay to transfer points to Hawaiian but not to more valuable programs like Aeroplan, ANA, Flying Blue, etc. And no other transferable points program makes us pay at all. Why Amex, why?
Personally, I’m currently sitting on over 1.5 million Amex points (not counting the millions of points that my wife and son have) and so I’m willing to gamble. My current thinking is that I’ll transfer around 350K points and that will result in 420K Alaska miles. That should be enough to keep me flying for a while.
What do you think? What will you do? Transfer or not? Comment below.
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No. Alaska is meh. The miles are a distraction to earn (even with Bilt), Floridians always have to connect in SEA on Alaska metal, making the Delta/ATL regime a joke. A few niche redemptions in J with points that come along once in a fortnight…pass. AA miles are far more plentiful and I can keep them alive indefinitely. Lastly, I have to periodically reinstate my Alaska account for dormancy.
I have accrued (but not spent) Alaska miles since the Marriott/Starwood merger (thanks to the old Starwood package deals) and now have 171,000 miles. I just signed up for the 70,000 mile Hawaiian Airlines card which I will get with a single purchase with the expectation that they will soon become Alaska miles. My problem is that every time I visit the Alaska website — with few exceptions — all redemptions are more expensive than AA. Does anyone else have this problem? My long-term intended use for these miles is a first class trans-Pacific RT. I last did that in 2005 using 125,000 USAirways miles!
Answer is Simple! It is same answer as what will stock market do tomorrow, month, Year. If you are a GAMBLER have the funds that will not bankrupt you, it is a worth while. “Got to be in it to Win It! ”
I would only do this to get discounted American Airlines flights. Which definatly NOT worth the 2+ year merger tying up any points. If you have millions of points to use elswhere, than why not… You should then put $50K on Black in Vegas also if you can afford it… You can easiy book American/alaska flights on British Air, and Cathway that have regular transfer bonus offers. So this is a HARD NO for me…
TIP: Advantage Points are most valuable in industry, What I found over the years in this game, is that American Air offers it’s Advantage members ONLY some OUTRAGIOUSLY OVERSIZED value (19-22 cents) on AA points for overseas (first class, east coast to south pacific and Asia for 70K points) flights, you need to be monitering routes. American has ton better deals than using the points game “gold standard” Virgin points to book ANA first class flights.
Does anyone know if you can change the card used to pay the Amex transfer fee?
I want to but I am scared. If I don’t have 250k sitting in virgin for a close in Ana maybe I would.
just so you know, you can no longer book close-in ANA w/ virgin points — only +14 days out is allowed now for virgin redemptions on NH metal. however, united can still see and book the close-in space
I’ve seen a lot of conflicting reports on that over the last 90 days. Some people have said they just did it and it still works and others saying they can’t. Do you have a link to a real source like an FM article?
Nothing super official (the closest I’m seeing is here, and it’s not that definitive: https://thepointsguy.com/news/book-ana-award-flights-virgin-flying-club-points). That said, I went to Japan in June and probably called Virgin like 10 times trying to book the close-in ANA J space I was seeing w/ United. The Virgin agents could never see any space 14 or fewer days out from departure, and they could consistently see space farther out than that. So I don’t know if it’s intentional or permanent, but as of now close-in ANA space is completely blocked on Virgin.
My concern is how soon will all this happen and how devalued will the program become by then. I benefited by transferring a lot of Marriott points to Virgin and then into Alaska at a premium but there is less value in the Alaska program now. I’d say if you are a west coast flyer or live in Hawaii I don’t think you could get hurt with this bet.
Adjacent to this post, but not totally on point.
Back when the merger was announced, FM discussed on a podcast whether applying and earning a SUB on the Hawaiian Airlines credit card. Thoughts on this route?
I’m an Alaska Million Miler and 100K. I love it when others talk about how to get Alaska miles; I just smile and count myself “lucky,” because the miles come easy when you live in Seattle and fly your hometown airline a lot (usually non-stop!).
Having said that, I did speculatively pick up a Hawaiian/Barclays business card last year. I’ll throw those soon-to-be Alaska miles on the pile 😉
Join us next weekend in Seattle, we have more DL flyers than AS flyers right now and Greg is a featured speaker adding to DL imbalance, PNW Points Festival 2024.
Thanks for the invitation but will be out of town (such is the nature of our hobby) :/
I also wonder if Amex will become a transfer partner with Alaska after the merger. I hope so, but I am guessing probably not.
PSA: Bilt dropped Hawaiian as a transfer partner.
They had a three-year agreement, which ended. Assuming the merger goes through and given Greg’s caveats, Bilt having Alaska as a transfer partner should suffice. But, given the departure of AA and Hawaiian, will other transfer partners depart when their respective agreements end?
I received no communication from Bilt regarding Hawaiian’s termination. This is disappointing. Since the beginning of the year, Bilt has instituted changes with no communication or with seemingly intentional subdued disclosure. This is disturbing.
While Bilt had been very good to me in the past . . . and I’m grateful for it . . . any points earned are transferred monthly. I’m not holding out for uncertain transfer bonuses.
I am starting to think that I’ll transfer all of my Bilt points out to Hyatt each month, after the Rent Day promo is announced. Too much risk otherwise.
My wife and I have about 2mm combined MRs. We’re transferring out 500k to turn it into 600k. Alaska execs, as covered by Beat of Hawaii (see: https://beatofhawaii.com/alaska-speaks-up-on-merger-our-comparative-look-at-mileage-rewards/) have plainly stated a 1:1 transfer ratio and AS abided by that when buying Virgin America. I think there’s a >90% chance of a 1:1 combined program and that’s a risk I’m willing to take. The new AS chart is hugely valuable for me as a Midwest AA hub flier; AA flights are regularly available for 4.5k or 7.5k AS miles that generate 2-3 cpp return easily. The new award chart seems mostly worse for frequent Asia or Oceania travelers but there’s a lot left to like for anyone else.
The only reason to transfer now to HA is because of the 20% bonus. That roughly means that the odds of winning all those “good” bets (successful merger, 1:1 ratio on mile conversion, no further AS devaluation for a while, etc.) together must exceed about 80% for this speculative transfer to make sense. Are the combined odds greater than 80%? You decide.
The other factor is when/if/how Amex removes Hawaiian as a transfer partner. We all hope there would be notice, but a no notice change would close this route to convert MR to Alaska miles.
Beat of Hawaii, a blog that’s covered the Hawaiian purchase closely, says that they received email correspondence from Alaska commiting to the 1:1 conversion. They included this in an article published yesterday for those interested.
I “bought” 400000 Alaska miles during Covid after the reports came out that refunds can be taken in miles…. that worked nicely. Like those Condor flights from the US to Europe. Will transfer maybe 300K or so
Another risk factor even if the Hawaii to Alaska conversion works as hoped is the time that will pass before we (hopefully) reach The Promised Land and are able to convert new and old Hawaiian Miles to Alaska miles. I think I’ve heard guesses of 12 to 24 months. In addition to taking transferred MR points out of circulation for that time, it gives more time for mischief to be done in devaluing the Alaska program.