Hawaiian Airlines FF Miles to Honolulu?

[Ramjet1997]

Recently I received a new Hawaiian Airlines credit card with promotional 60,000 miles - has anybody flown from the West Coast (say San Diego, Los Angeles, or even Las Vegas) to Honolulu and how many miles did it take for a one way ticket?   The airline tells me that it "depends" on availability, and that they cannot quote specific miles - anywhere from 20,000 up to 90,000 miles on their chart!  Seems to me it is hard to save your miles for a ticket when you don't know how many miles to save!  What am I missing?  Anyone use miles recently?  And how many miles was it to fly to Honolulu?  We are cruising next May, so we only need one way since the Ovation ends up in British Columbia.  Any insight or suggestions are greatly appreciated....

[CruiserBruce]

It is called "dynamic pricing", and many airlines are doing it now. The way to save for it is to watch prices and get the ideas what the range is. You then need to be prepared for that range.

[Ramjet1997]

11 minutes ago, CruiserBruce said:

It is called "dynamic pricing", and many airlines are doing it now. The way to save for it is to watch prices and get the ideas what the range is. You then need to be prepared for that range.

Thanks for the info, Cruiser Bruce - but this guy at Hawaiian said that there is no correlation with the price and the miles.  His exact words were: "mileage requirements are only generated by the system according to the availability of seats.  Please keep in mind that seats allocated for mileage bookings are different from seats allocated for dollar fares.  That is why you might see a scenario where the dollar fares have a lower price  and the mileage requirement of the same flight offers a higher point requirement".  This is a chat that I had with him today on their app.  This process sounds like the way most legacy airlines USED to price their FF fares.  Most airlines (I think) today have a correlation - the higher the dollar fare, so does the mileage/point requirement.  Seems like they are gouging you for as many miles as they think they can get, irrespective of the demand for the seats.  As I missing something?

[CruiserBruce]

I don't think most airlines have price and cash correlation, because each route has different demand levels for free or cash seats. MANY people go to Hawaii for vacations, far fewer for business. I think you would find vacation travelers are more inclined to try to use miles for their travel where possible.

[Ramjet1997]

Real good point!  Thanks for your perspective !

[Astro Flyer]

We use HawaiianMiles to/from Maui several times per year and they are easily our best option.

 

By having their chargecard we get the discounted rates shown in the chart which nearly always has been 17,500 miles one way from the West Coast.  Another benefit is having the option to use miles & to pay for a flight such as miles to Maui & pay to return to LAX.  We often return to Maui in May which is a slower time for tourism & you’re likely to need 17,500 pp/ow for LAX/HNL...only 35,000 of your 60,000 miles.

 

My recommendation is to use their website which for me is very easy to book flights.  Their reps probably do not know how the number of miles is determined.  Like paying for any flight more demand & fewer available seats results in requiring more miles.

 

I checked for Spring Break 2020 and was shocked by the number of miles required...$140,000 per person or nearly $900 when that’s normally the amount for 4 roundtrip 35,000 mile flights.

 

From LAX they fly the wide body A330 (2-4-2 economy) and from some other cities it’s an A321 (3-3).  You get a free checked bag with their CC, a sandwich with chips & a rum punch but do have to pay to watch movies & TV programming on the seat back screens.

 

https://hawaiianair.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2218

 

 

Edited June 20, 2019 by Astro Flyer

[TMLAalum]

13 hours ago, Ramjet1997 said:

Recently I received a new Hawaiian Airlines credit card with promotional 60,000 miles - has anybody flown from the West Coast (say San Diego, Los Angeles, or even Las Vegas) to Honolulu and how many miles did it take for a one way ticket?   The airline tells me that it "depends" on availability, and that they cannot quote specific miles - anywhere from 20,000 up to 90,000 miles on their chart!  Seems to me it is hard to save your miles for a ticket when you don't know how many miles to save!  What am I missing?  Anyone use miles recently?  And how many miles was it to fly to Honolulu?  We are cruising next May, so we only need one way since the Ovation ends up in British Columbia.  Any insight or suggestions are greatly appreciated....

 

Can you use your miles to fly from Ohio? Hawaiian Air partners with American so it should be possible. For us using UA ff miles departing at the end of April 2020 it was 22.5k each from CLE thru DEN to HNL; however, even for itineraries departing the same day as our booking, required mileage varied upwards. 

 

At a glance using the AA website with a departure date of 5/13 this is what they are showing for Economy Web Special from CLE to HNL (something new to me, cannot be changed and itineraries involve 3 legs and an overnight flight):

• 5/11-22k. 5/12= 33k, 5/13- 38.5k and 5/15- 49k.

[Astro Flyer]

There is some limited partnership between HA & AA however based on the current information on the HA website their miles cannot be used on AA...only on Japan, Jet Blue, Korean, Virgin Atlantic & Virgin Australia.  I’ve considered using HawaiianMiles on Jet Blue & Virgin Atlantic but found the redemption rates to be poor.

 

https://hawaiianair.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/528

 

HA does fly non-stop from JFK & BOS (26,500 miles) but don’t know if that’d be cost effective for the OP.  They show flights from CLE (Jet Blue to BOS;  HA to HNL) however there are no award tickets on that routing & only paid tickets ($427).

 

AAdvantage Miles can be used on eligible HA flights which  if I recall correctly are only for interisland flights. 

 

Edited June 20, 2019 by Astro Flyer