Late 2023, Alaska Airlines announced that it planned to acquire Hawaiian Airlines and just last week, the DOJ allowed the merger to move ahead. Today, we’ll talk about how to prepare for this “wedding” between programs.
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Main Event: Alaska/Hawaiian Airlines Wedding Planning
Mailbag
(00:56) – The value of my Life miles just disappeared into Finn Air
Listen to Ask Us Anything Ep69 here.
Listen to Frequent Miler on the Air Ep268 “Best Uses for Virgin Points” here.
Crazy Thing
(02:10) – Dell no longer selling many 3rd party items (headphones, etc)
(03:43) – Amex Business Platinum card credits for Dell, Adobe, and Indeed are ending 12/31/24
Read more about the Amex Business Platinum card here.
Award Talk
(06:32) – Which hotel award search tool is best?
Read Greg’s post about which hotel award search tool is best here.
(10:02) – Radisson Rewards instant status (Read more about Radisson Rewards instant status here.)
(11:34) – Marriott just sent Greg a $50 promo gift card for continued loyalty
Main Event: Alaska/Hawaiian Airlines Wedding Planning
(13:08) – Late 2023, Alaska Airlines announced that it planned to acquire Hawaiian Airlines…
(15:28) – Backing up… Let’s talk about the pre-merger situation with both airlines…
(16:13) – Alaska Airlines recently joined oneworld alliance, recently overhauled award charts, and pledged to offer mixed partner awards by late 2024
(17:34) – What we like about Alaska Airlines…
(21:13) – Alaska miles are hard to get in huge quantities…
(22:55) – Alaska credit cards…
Learn more about the Alaska Airlines Visa Signature card here.
Learn more about the Alaska Airlines Visa Business card here.
(24:25) – Currently, very few great uses for Hawaiian Airlines miles
(25:05) – Hawaiian Airlines has wide body jets with lie-flat business class seats, and international destinations: South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, Cook Islands
(26:16) – Getting Hawaiian Airline miles…
Learn more about the Hawaiian Airlines World Elite MasterCard by Barclays here.
Learn more about the Hawaiian Airlines Business card here.
(28:51) – What we know about the merger so far…
(30:13) – What we don’t know yet…
(36:05) – Amex Membership Rewards 20% transfer bonus to Hawaiian through 8/31/24
Question of the Week
(46:19) – One reader booked a one way partner flight through Flying Blue, then it was revoked at the Copa counter without notice or explanation. Is this common and what should you do in this kind if situation?
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Music Credit – “Ocean Deep” by Annie Yoder
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For the question of the week, if the traveler is US based, I would (as you suggested) reach out to AF/KLM to complain. If that doesn’t go anywhere, and assuming the ticket touched US soil, I would then file a complaint with the US DOT. Cancelling a valid ticket for bogus reasons without even notifying the traveler should result in sanctions.
The key coming improvement that will change Alaska from a niche program for me to a major player in my plans is the ability to use multiple partners on an award ticket. For me, an itinerary or positioning flight on American or some other domestic airline is always needed first, so that’s a big negative when it comes to booking an Alaska award. If I want to book with Alaska miles out of my home airport, I am limited to places American and/or Alaska serve. Being able to book flights from home to all over the OneWorld network will be huge. Taking Alaska at its word that they will implement this multiple partner booking by late 2024, I went ahead and converted some of my MR points to Hawaiian and will take a close look at the Hawaiian CC.
Question: When you say one can’t earn “huge” amounts of Alaska points, how much is “huge?” Nick, you mention 300k points. Is 300k points per year (from other than revenue flights and brute force Alaska credit card spending) huge?
Separately, in spite of Alaska’s loyalty program changes, it will still be attractive to many. But, this Alaska policy prohibiting non-Alaska tier status on an Alaska award ticket suggests to me that there are more shoes to drop . . . including other One World programs adopting similar policies.
We all know that the lounges are often over-crowded. I can see a policy that states an award ticket will only afford lounge access if 1) it is booked in a premium cabin or 2) the individual has appropriate tier status with the airline that issued the award ticket. I just have this gnawing sense that something like this is in the works.
Great podcast, I think something could be missing. Is it guaranteed that the merger will happen? What are the chances that the merger fails to go through? Seems like it should have been a point of discussion.
Technically, the US Department of Transportation (FAA) could still object but that is unlikely to happen. The State of Hawaii was consulted during the acquisition negotiation process and publicly endorses the merger. Other states could object but there is no sign of such.
Thanks for the great podcast. I had no idea about HA free transfers.
FYI Alaska hasn’t allowed business awards on Iceland air for a few years even though it’s in the chart. They call it a temporary issue but on FT you can see it is not.
https://www.alaskaair.com/content/mileage-plan/how-to-earn-miles/airline-partners/icelandair
We have temporarily removed the ability to shop for award travel on Icelandair’s Saga Business Class flights due to a high rate of booking failures. We are working with Icelandair to resolve this issue and apologize for the inconvenience.