It’s unusual to see a Hawaii mileage sale, so this is a great find. Instead of 40,000 miles round trip, you can visit Hawaii for only 32,000 miles. From the East Coast, smaller cities, and even most West Coast cities, this represents excellent value. I typically think of miles as being worth one cent each, by which calculation you fly to Hawaii for the equivalent of about $300.
Oliver (2 years ago)
I booked four seats from SFO-HNL for early May the other day. Unfortunately there were no award seats available on the flights I wanted, but I was pretty happy with the $395 fare. I tend to value miles at greater than 1 cent since most of my redemptions are for premium cabin awards.
Jeff (2 years ago)
Hi Oliver,
Thanks for commenting. If you have premium status it increases the perceived value of miles. Perhaps I should have clarified that.
Aloha, Jeff
Oliver (2 years ago)
Well, the value of miles is never absolute and fixed on legacy carriers like UA (and that’s a good thing). If you can accumulate enough miles to travel in internationally and you are actually interested in traveling internationally, you can get exceptionally high value out of miles. With domestic only travel it is more difficult. 32k miles to save +390+ isn’t great, but I would have still bought two of my four seats as awards because those two travelers don’t travel enough to benefit from the miles earned on the paid ticket.
Alas, no awards available when I wanted to fly, and I really didn’t
want to cut short a vacation in paradise to save a few bucks.
Keep up the good work, I really enjoy reading your insightful posts each day.