Finding Your Strategy Following Merger of Alaska/Hawaiian Miles

The purchase of Hawaiian Airlines by Alaska Airlines has led to an excellent milestone: It is now possible to transfer and pool miles between the two loyalty programs. This opens up new opportunities for maximizing miles, which we’re taking advantage of, and you may want to do as well.

How does this benefit Hawaii travelers?

Transfer miles instantly.

Alaska Airlines has launched an instant transfer option for their miles with Hawaiian Airlines. This means you can now transfer your HawaiianMiles to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan or vice versa without any wait and very easily. We just transferred miles, and while they say it can take up to 24 hours, the transfer was reflected immediately.

Pool miles across accounts (Hawaiian Barclay credit card holders).

This new feature allows you to consolidate miles from multiple accounts into one, making it easier to achieve travel thresholds faster. It doesn’t matter whose miles you’re pooling, including family, friends, or business associates. This makes pooling Alaska miles available, which is usually not the case, even for Alaska Airlines Visa cardholders.

Option to convert American Express Membership Rewards to Alaska.

Since American Express Membership Rewards points also transfer to Hawaiian Airlines at a 1:1 ratio (but not to Alaska), this new transfer capability means you can indirectly convert your Amex points into Alaska Mileage Plan miles. This option is not normally available, but it makes Alaska Airlines accessible to Amex cardholders by transferring them to a HawaiianMiles account and then to Alaska.

How to transfer miles between Hawaiian and Alaska Airlines.

Transferring your miles is a simple process following these steps:

Visit the points transfer page.

Go to the Points.com transfer page, where you can choose whether to transfer miles from Hawaiian to Alaska or the other direction.

Log into both accounts.

The transfer page prompts you to sign in to your HawaiianMiles and Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan accounts easily. It also automatically displays saved logins and passwords.

Choose how many points you wish to transfer.

Select the number of miles you’ll be moving using a slider. Transfers are permitted in increments of 50 miles.

Confirm the points transfer.

After verifying the details, click to complete the process, and your transferred miles will appear in your chosen account.

Getting the most of your airline miles.

If you have the Hawaiian Airlines Barclay’s credit card, the benefits are even better:

Combine miles before transfer to Alaska.

Hawaiian Airlines credit cardholders can transfer miles between accounts without cost, which allows them to leverage and consolidate their miles into one account before transferring them to Alaska.

Why combine miles to Alaska Airlines.

This is very helpful if you want to take a trip together and use the combined miles to make the purchase. Since Alaska does not permit the pooling of miles, this makes redemptions easier. Otherwise, two people traveling together would need separate reservations, which, while doable, isn’t as easy to work with as a single reservation (PNR). Now, you can pool your HawaiianMiles together and transfer them to a single Alaska Airlines account.

Why we greatly prefer miles at Alaska Airlines instead of Hawaiian.

While HawaiianMiles are excellent for specific travel, including mileage upgrades on Hawaiian Airlines flights and free trips, Alaska Mileage Plan miles are renowned for being far more valuable and versatile.

Alaska Airlines has a vast network of global partners that provide redemption choices worldwide. Alaska is also a member of the Oneworld Alliance, while Hawaiian isn’t yet, but it will be in the next 12-18 months. Alaska is the way to gain access to a far wider array of mileage redemption choices using partner airlines for global travel, while Hawaiian’s partners are extremely limited.

How long is this valid offer?

It isn’t clear, but it may be available until the single operating certificate that fully combines the currently separate operations of Hawaiian and Alaska is issued. That is the point at which the two loyalty programs will be fully integrated. However, that could change, and we’ll do our best to keep you apprised of any updates on this currently open-ended offer.

Until that occurs, or the rules change, you can transfer HawaiianMiles to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan and vice versa, enabling more flexibility and value, depending on your travel needs. For example, if Hawaiian Airlines travel is planned in that period, you may want to move miles from Alaska for that redemption.

Will you be moving your miles between Hawaiian and Alaska now? What is your strategy?