Alaska has announced that their merger with Hawaiian Airlines is complete! So what are the details, and what does this mean for us? We’ll discuss this in today’s episode.
Winning the Alaska x Hawaiian Airlines Merger
Mailbag
(01:36) – What’s with the stupid virus pop-up on our website?
(03:40) – Greg’s update on the Pacific Northwest Points Travel Festival and some of the folks he met
(09:04) – Read about 10-year old Walker’s first place win at the USA Mullet Championship here!
(11:57) – Learn more about the next Points Travel Festival here.
Card News
(12:50) – Big offers from Delta, Amex Marriot, IHG and more…
Read more about the Delta card offers (up to 110K miles) here.
Read more about the Amex Marriott Bonvoy Business Card offer here.
Read more about the new IHG card offers here.
Read more about the Ink Business Unlimited 90K offer here.
(25:22) – Read “The Points Parade marches on thanks to a new round of targeted 250K offers” here.
(30:00) – Read more about Amex Uber credits here.
(31:39) – Read “Downgrade paths: How to keep your card but break up with your annual fee or find a better fit” here.
(33:14) – Read more about buying groups here.
Mattress Running the Numbers
(33:39) – Chase 50% transfer bonus to Marriott through 11/15.
Learn more about this transfer bonus here.
Points & Awards Talk
(37:15) – Rental car deals with Avis and National…
(42:42) – Citi Transfer bonuses through Oct 19
Learn more about Citi’s 25% transfer bonus to Avianca here.
Learn more about Citi’s 25% transfer bonus to Leading Hotels of the World here.
(44:28) – Hilton adds over 100 additional SLH properties
Read more about Hilton’s 100 additional SLH properties here.
(46:59) – In case you missed it, you can find our “Debate: 30% Amex to Hilton Transfer Bonus. Should we do it?” Coffee Break Ep26 here.
Main Event: Winning the Alaska x Hawaiian Airlines Merger
(47:26) – Read more about the Alaska / Hawaaiin merger green light here.
(47:54) – Quick facts
(48:20) – Earn and redeem miles across both airlines (early 2025)
(48:31) – Single loyalty program coming (Details mid 2025)
(49:09) – Huaka’i by Hawaiian (for Hawaii residents)
(50:16) – Seamless miles transfer
(52:14) – We still have questions!
(57:39) – Listen to Podcast episode 269 about the Alaska / Hawaiian merger here.
(1:01:39) – What are the short term opportunities to consider?
(1:03:27) – Combine Alaska miles into one account for free!
(1:06:10) – Apply now for Hawaiian Airlines cards before its too late…orr wait for better last-gasp offers?
Learn more about the Hawaiian Airlines personal card here, and the Hawaiian Airlines business card here.
Question of the Week
(1:25:43) – A reader used their Amex Platinum to pay for the tax on an award ticket, then got a charge for trip delay. Doesn’t this card already have travel delay covered, though?
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Music Credit – “Ocean Deep” by Annie Yoder
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The Aloha Polar Bear merger finished much quicker than I think most of us anticipated. Great discussion on this and I like Nick need to consider how many MR to transfer over and when.
I’m in the camp of being skeptical we see another Hawaiian transfer bonus before the AMEX transfer option goes kaput. Past history shows AMEX would often go a year or longer between transfer bonuses to Hawaiian. But I hope I’m wrong!
Thank you for another great episode. You mentioned that it seems you have to already have a business card with Amex to get the 250k business plat offer. My husband and I both had the Plat offers and my husband has the 200k Bus Gold offer but neither of us had Amex business cards. Go figure.
Great podcast guys! I’m a little skeptical if Greg’s predictions about the likelihood of Hawaiian Airlines transfer bonuses and increased sign up bonuses, considering he doesn’t have the best track record with predictions. I would consult the expert predictors of Carrie and Stephen…
Nick mentioned you have to live in Hawaii but years ago I got the Bank of Hawaii Hawaiian card and I live in the Midwest. I remember they called me to check if I really wanted the card. It may have changed rules though.
Very informative and helpful podcast (as usual)!
Despite the potential for another transfer bonus, I just moved 16,000 MRs to Hawaiian. Definitely NOT a huge chunk, but it sets me up to get both my Hawaiian account (after 70k cc SUB) and my Alaska account (after a 1,000 mile transfer from Hawaiian) to 85,000.
Significance of that is to (hopefully) use the 85k sweet spot for Starlux to BKK and/or a RT saver fare from LAS to HNL.
Great discussion as usual guys! One thing about the merger and airline credit cards to consider is precedent – what have other companies done previously in similar situations? One example is AA/US Airways merger. Barclays was the card issuer for US airways, but that was converted to an AA card post merger and continued for years. Could the same occur with Alaska/HA? Interestingly, Barclays has very recently given investor guidance that they will likely move away from airline card issuers, perhaps hinting at the recent Citi talks with AA to be exclusive partners as well as the Alaska/HA merger. I am sure the language in the existing agreements are critical in both cases, which are not publicly available.
Thanks again for the great podcast. Is there any guide on how to do free stopovers with Alaska? For ex: if I wish to book Qatar flight from US to Doha, how do I avail the free stopover?
We’ll be posting a guide on youtube within the next few weeks
Exciting, thank you!
Thanks for the info and discussion about Alaska / Hawaaiin merger. I am wondering, normally, when AMEX announces its termination of the partnership with Hawaaiin airline, is it something that would happen right away at the time of announcement, or AMEX would probably allow certain days for people to do the last minute transfer?
I’m hoping that they’ll make an announcement so that we’ll have time but this kind of thing is so rare that I don’t think there’s an answer to what happens normally.
This is all great, but everyone skips over the fact that Alaska’s award chart is awful post-devaluation. It’s like Alaska has gotten away with murder, completely destroying their award chart with minimal complaining by bloggers.
That chart is pretty good overall. It is fairly competitive with Aeroplan on most routes to Europe and to Asia. It has good pricing on LATAM to South America. It has the best partner pricing for most domestic AA routes. Maybe the award standardization hurt some really great sweet spots, but the program is pretty useful. If the miles were easier to get, it would easily be the favorite OneWorld program of most people. Avios are becoming increasingly difficult to use, and Qantas is very much hit or miss.
If Alaska’s award chart was awful Greg wouldn’t go big transferring a million points to Hawaiian betting the programs would merge 1:1. The sweet spots may have changed such that it’s not a good fit for certain travel but no way could you call it awful.