A Hawaii flash sale arose in the past day or so. It is on offer in varying forms from all of the airlines flying to Hawaii, Alaska, American, Delta, Hawaiian, Southwest, and United. The prices start at $90 and go up to just over $100 each way on the most competitive routes from Northern and Southern California to all islands. Several big questions arise to consider, however, as to the current Hawaii flash sale.
Is this a good time to visit Hawaii?
Answer: Hawaii is on overload and beyond its capacity for medical care due to the explosion of Delta Variant Covid cases. Adding anything to that mix, even trauma from a visitor’s hiking accident, illness, or worse, simply isn’t good.
How long will that overload continue to be the case? We don’t know, and it doesn’t appear that anyone else does either. While other countries have experienced a very rapid drop-off of cases from this variant (the UK as one example), no one seems to know if that will be the case here. There were 647 new cases in Hawaii today and 8,536 cases in just the past 14 days.
Many believe that the sharp rise in cases is attributable to Hawaii visitors. The governor and the lieutenant governor, however, have both indicated that is simply not the case. Others are certain that the case explosion emanates from those Hawaii residents who have traveled to the mainland and then returned without either vaccination or testing. They instead go into what appears to now be an unsupervised quarantine at home, wherein they can infect others via community spread. You decide who to believe.
And it isn’t just those factors to consider. For example, Hawaii had extraordinarily high unemployment, and most people have only gone back to work in the past six months. We have already noted and mentioned a recent and marked drop-off in forward reservations and an increase in cancellations due to concerns about traveling once again. Without visitors, unemployment will once again rear its head, and this time, it wouldn’t appear to have a big federal lifeline behind it.
Lastly, we’ve said many times before that this is “normally” our favorite time of year in the islands. For innumerable reasons, late summer and fall is a fantastic time to visit Hawaii most years. The weather starts to cool from the peak of summer. The sun is even more beautiful, the ocean water is perfect, and there are epic sunrises and sunsets to enjoy too. There are normally fewer visitors in this period, which makes everything more accessible and personal.
Then again, this isn’t an ordinary year. Restaurants have been hard to get into, Hawaii car rentals have been sky-high, and activities have been sold out. But things are changing, and quickly. We just found some Hawaii car rentals for this fall at a fraction of the cost we found just a couple of weeks ago. A friend couldn’t get their desired hotel reservation for September, and then suddenly they just did.
Can you get a refund or credit on these flash sale tickets if you change your mind and decide not to visit now?
Answer: Great question. The answer is no on refunds, as tickets are non-refundable. Regarding credit, it depends entirely on which airline you are flying and that has recently gotten a lot more interesting. Three airlines are offering to change flights for free, on even their cheapest tickets. For the full overview of that situation, read:
Airlines Again Offer Free Changes On All Hawaii Flights
It is the right time, and it is also the right time for residents of Hawaii to get vaccinated.
End the pandemic; get vaccinated.
The alternative is;
Refuse vaccines; stalling economy and death
I am so sick of people making excuses for unvaccinated people who prolong the pandemic and overburden our health care system
Since this pandemic has Kauai started to actually clean up and sterilize their public restrooms and include hand soap. That would help alot in curbing outbreaks. You know what I mean Polihale restroom barely got the toilet paper changed, the Lucy Wright Park was given up on long before the pandemic, The Russian fort restroom always dirty and trash overflowing, Kapaa beach park and the Lehi. Just because an area is deemed bad does not mean don’t do the job you are paid for. Closing these places down is not an answer and you wonder why the spike in illness and waste. BTW Vaccines is a preventative measure not a cure please stop taking it personally if someone opts out of the vaccine.It is their choice and nobody’s business why. Build up your immune system. Vaccine is not a cure, does not mean you won’t get it or transmit the disease.
No Annette the vaccine is not a “cure” anymore then staying healthy and building up your immune system is. But just like staying healthy certainly increases your odds of not needing hospitalization or dying from Covid, so does the vaccine, only more more so. Despite the focus on the breakthrough cases as everyone is doing, the numbers still prove the vaccinated are very very rarely needing hospitalization. They are also much less likely to catch and spread the virus then an unvaccinated person. Yes to not get vaccinated is your own business, just know that to get vaccinated is an act of Aloha and concern for others.
Amen JohnW!
a resident.Increase in covid!
As long as you have young people Vacinated? In droves no masks or distancing partying drinking in cafés clubs and on the streets in ka’aako till the early hours of the morning 2 – 4am then there will be an increase in covid. Reporting to the police has made little difference.