If you’re a Hawaii resident or someone who visits here frequently, chances are you have at least some HawaiianMiles sitting around. I’m always looking for the most effective ways to use my miles, and thought I’d share my tips with you.
My mileage redemption goal: I hope to see my miles be worth more than 1-cent each in equivalent airfare.
The higher the price of the ticket in relation to the number of miles required, obviously the better the value obtained by using miles. Below are examples of how to extract the best value.
Most Effective Redemptions
1. Hawaii to/from Tahiti or American Samoa.
- You can use HawaiianMiles on many dates to either location for only 27,500 miles each way. It’s one of the best values and yields nearly 2 cents for each mile redeemed.
- Hawaiian charges $540 each way for their once weekly service between the Hawaiian Islands and Papeete, Tahiti. They also charge $528 each way for their twice weekly service between the Hawaiian Islands and Pago Pago, American Samoa. Score big with miles.
2. Inter-island – when flying between two neighbor islands (Big Island to Maui for example).
- Flying from one neighbor island to another neighbor island (with or without a plane change on Oahu), the airfare ranges from $85 to $204 each way. You can typically use HawaiianMiles instead for 8,500 miles each way. That’s about the same number of miles needed just to fly between Oahu and a neighbor island.
3. Inter-island – when flights get very expensive. If you’re flying over a holiday, a busy weekend, or just haven’t planned far enough in advance, the cost of inter-island flights can be ridiculously high.
- Oahu to Big Island for example (or any other single segment flight to/from Oahu) can run well over $100 each way at these peak times. Alternatively, you can use HawaiianMiles for 7,500-8,500 miles each way.
4. Trans-Pacific when fares are high.
- If you plan to travel to Hawaii over the upcoming Christmas/New Year’s holiday for example, you know that prices are for the most part extremely high. I was checking on the fare for someone between Los Angeles and Lihue for December 19 through February 2. The airfares are approximately $1,100 round trip. By using HawaiianMiles, however, I was able to find a round trip for 47,500 miles on the same dates and flights, again yielding over 2 cents value for each mile redeemed. While this only works some of the time, it is always worth a try.
5. On Delta Airlines.
HawaiianMiles can be used for travel on Continental, Delta and Virgin Atlantic. One of the best values here is Delta 25,000 mile round trip award, valid within the Mainland, Canada and Mexico.
If you have any tips for redeeming miles, be sure to tell us in the comment section.
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Kris (1 year ago)
What do you think of using Hawaiian Miles for flights to/from Sydney? Yay or nay?
Jeff (1 year ago)
Hi Kris,
Nay. Too many miles. Better deals, especially from Jetstar, whose service I prefer to Hawaiian.
Aloha, Jeff
Soozzie (1 year ago)
We use the same analysis for our frequent flier miles. We got the Hawaiian Air credit card specifically to use the miles on a Virgin Air flight to London. We tried for a year to get a flight, with exceptional flexibility on our part, and were told that there were no seats available to us for months at a time, even though the flights were nowhere near full. You folks told us that it was possible, but our months-long effort failed. So we have given up, and are using our miles for flights to/from the mainland; when they are gone we will switch to another program.
Jeff (1 year ago)
Hi Soozzie,
I told you it was possible in the sense that I was able to use HawaiianMiles for a Virgin Atlantic trip . That’s been a number of years already and perhaps it has changed. That’s a good warning to others. Using miles on Hawaiian Air itself has always been quite easy.
Aloha, Jeff