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Are palm trees and sunshine perpetually on your mind? This week, Frequent Miler on the Air discusses all of your best options for getting to the islands of Aloha from as few as 10-15,000 points each way from almost anywhere in the US — and how to find the right deals.
Watch the full episode below, or listen on your favorite podcast platform. You can click the timestamps below to navigate directly to a specific part of the episode within YouTube.
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Main Event: Best ways to get to Hawaii
Mailbag
(01:06) Review from a new listener
Card Talk: Sonesta World Mastercard
(03:22) Card Talk: Sonesta World Mastercard
Crazy Thing
(16:00) What crazy thing . . . did Marriott and Starbucks do this week?
Mattress Running the Numbers
(19:51) Mattress running the numbers: Wyndham Rewards Hotel Pass
Award Talk
(27:48) Award Talk
(27:55) New Reasonable Redemption Value for Hotel Points
(30:29) Aeroplan promotion with Miles4Migrants. Update: This campaign has ended (they reached the full allotment of 18,750,000 miles for donations!).
(34:19) 15% transfer bonus from Citi to Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
(27:03) Enterprise Rent-A-Car Status Match
(30:29) Amex referral bonuses now as high as 45,000 points for targeted cardholders
Main Event: Best ways to get to Hawaii
(42:44) Main Event: Best Ways to fly to Hawaii
(43:04) Cash deals
- (43:30) Delta companion certificates
- (44:55) Alaska Companion Fare
- (46:13) Southwest Companion Pass
- (47:32) Vacation packages
(29:15) Award deals: Economy Class
- (49:24) United flights via Turkish Miles & Smiles for 10K each way
- (50:48) Finnair Avios for American Airlines (15K) or Alaska Airlines (13.5K)
- (52:52) Alaska Mileage Plan for Alaska from 15K
- (53:35) Singapore Krisflyer for central/Western US to Hawaii (13-14K)
- (54:33) Using Alaska miles to fly AA for 17.5K from Dallas and west coast
- (55:32) Use United to fly United from 11.1K from the west coast
- (56:42) Aeroplan for 12.5K from the west coast to Hawaii on United
- (58:00) Qatar Avios for 13K one way from the west coast
- (59:00) Flying Blue for Delta from 18K
- (59:16) Virgin Atlantic for Hawaiian Airlines for 20K each way from the west coast
- (1:00:16) JetBlue for Hawaiian Airlines for 20K each way from the west coast
- (1:00:48) American Airlines miles for AA from 20K each way
- (1:01:39) Southwest Airlines when cash fares are cheap
(1:02:00) “First class” flights to Hawaii with miles
- (1:02:57) Turkish miles for United: 15K miles each way
- (1:05:35) Finnair Avios for American Airlines” 38K miles each way
- (1:07:00) Alaska Miles for Alaska from 40K miles each way
- (1:07:21) Hawaiian miles to fly Hawaiian: 40K one way or upgrade from 25K. Possibly more availability with status or as a cardholder.
- (1:09:25) Virgin Atlantic miles to fly Hawaiian: 40K one way from the west coast \
- (1:09:48) Alaska Mileage Plan for American Airlines: 35K one-way from as far east as Dallas
- (1:10:10) Air Canada Aeroplan for United for 25K from the west coast
- (1:10:50) Qatar Airways Avios for American or Alaska for 38,750 Avios from the west coast
Finding award availability
(1:11:50) Example for how to find award availability
Question of the Week
(1:19:33) Question of the Week: Is reselling a good low-energy way to generate points?
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Music Credit – “Ocean Deep” by Annie Yoder
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A nice game-able aspect of Hawaii is that for the purposes of the United Excursionist perk, Hawaii is considered a separate region. If you are already in Hawaii and planning to island hop, United routinely has cheap 5k award inter island fares. You can do the following:
Speaking of Hawaii, it would be particularly nice if AA used its new XLRs on flights from/to LAX and SFO.
I listen to your podcast every Saturday morning. This morning, after I heard you discuss the Miles4Mgrants Aeroplan offer, I went there and found that the promotion had ended. Bummer
Thanks for commenting. I hadn’t realized that they’d hit their limit – I’ve updated our post about that and will add a note to the notes here as well, thanks. Bummer indeed — though I guess that means they received $250K in donations, so that’s great.