Hawaii Flights After Merger: Bag Fees Hit Travelers Who Do Everything Right

Travelers arrive at the airport heading for Honolulu, Lihue, Kahului, Hilo, or Kona, believing their bags are covered, only to be told at the counter that they owe $40, $80, sometimes more. The emails keep coming in about this at Beat of Hawaii, and so do the comments. These are not first-time flyers. Many have an Alaska or Hawaiian airline credit card. Some hold elite status. Others did everything the airline told them to do and still got charged.

What makes this sting is that the Alaska acquisition of Hawaiian was supposed to and will eventually simplify things. One loyalty program. Fewer moving parts. Clearer benefits. Instead, baggage rules for Hawaii flights are now spread across two legacy card brands, new Atmos cards, elite tiers that just changed, resident-only programs, route-specific pricing, and fine print that depends on how and where you booked. The result is not any single mistake. It is a system that keeps surprising people at the exact moment when surprises cost money and are least helpful.

This is not a niche loyalty complaint. Families, repeat visitors, and Hawaii residents are all getting caught in the same traps, and we keep hearing about it. Bags are where the confusion shows up most clearly, because the cost is immediate and unavoidable. You either pay or your bags do not fly.

Where people keep getting tripped up on bag fees.

This is where the comment section has done most of our reporting. The traps are not exotic. These are common situations that should not be this difficult. The bigger problem is that travelers are only learning the “real” rules at the counter, not on the booking screen.

1. Booking through a third party. The fine print on most airline credit cards expects you to book directly, and that is exactly where people go wrong, because they book the way they have always booked. Even if your card is supposed to cover bags, the airline can treat your reservation differently.

You can see this in how reservations are, for now, split into two worlds, with two confirmation numbers and two systems that do not always talk to each other. Gail M described it as “completely insane,” especially when Huakai is involved, because “each traveler must have their own number and own reservation,” which can force families into separate bookings and separate seat selections. That is a real inconvenience when you are traveling with kids, and it is also where baggage benefits may get lost.

2. Using the wrong card for the trip. The Hawaiian Mastercard gives two bags, but only for the primary cardholder. The Atmos cards give one bag, but can cover up to six companions. A family of four is often better off with the Atmos card, even though it means fewer bags per person, because the Hawaiian card covers no one else. Solo travelers, on the other hand, may get more value out of the Hawaiian card if it actually triggers correctly at the check-in counter.

Another surprise can show up at the counter when companions are treated differently from the cardholder. One person has the card. The benefit attaches to one person. The spouse standing next to them gets charged.

Julie described a version of this where the system tried to charge for bags during online check-in, even though they were told the Hawaiian card would keep bags free. At the airport, the agent waived the fee but told her she would have to continue checking in at the counter to get the free bag option. That seemed to suggest that the benefit only works if you show up early, stand in line, and talk to an agent who knows how to override the system.

3. Atmos Silver downgrade and how it interacts with card benefits. Scott D. laid it out clearly for every Hawaii traveler to understand. He said that starting January 2, Atmos Silver status holders “are now restricted to just one free checked bag rather than two,” and he also has an Atmos Visa card that comes with a free checked bag for him and up to six others. He exclaimed, “I was just informed by Alaska customer service that these are not additive, and we are now restricted to one free bag. So, our Maui trips are suddenly $180 more costly.”

Titanium and Platinum members receive three free checked bags for themselves and companions. Gold members receive two free checked bags for themselves and companions.

4. Hawaiian changed how much weight a “free” checked bag can actually include. The answer depends on the fare class. Under the newer baggage schedule, First Class bags are now allowed up to 70 pounds, up from the long-standing 50-pound limit. That even caught us off guard. For most economy travelers, however, including those getting a free bag through a credit card, elite status, or Huakai, the standard weight limit still appears to apply, with overweight fees charged above that threshold. The airline’s fee page does not make this distinction clear, and even frequent flyers can come away thinking the 70-pound allowance applies more broadly than it does.

5. Baggage rules now depend on both when you bought your ticket and when you travel. Hawaiian currently has two baggage price schedules in effect at the same time. Tickets purchased before October 14, 2025, or flown before January 2, 2026, follow the old rules most travelers remember, including that 50-pound weight limit. Tickets purchased after October 14 for travel after January 2 follow a newer schedule that quietly raises the per-bag weight limit for some to 70 pounds. Even frequent flyers are missing this distinction, because nothing about the booking flow clearly signals which rule set applies.

6. Interisland confusion. Huakai is supposed to be straightforward for Hawaii residents, but it is now one of the places where travelers are reporting friction. It offers one free bag on neighbor-island flights. Bonnie C described how benefits can narrow to the cardholder only, even when you are traveling with your own resident family. She said she booked Lihue to Honolulu with a Huakai discount code, but it “only gave 10% off the cardholder’s ticket, with 1 free checked bag,” and the rest of her resident clan did not qualify. That is not how most people imagine resident benefits working when everyone in the group is a resident. While it seems Hawaiian has been clear enough about that part, obviously, everyone didn’t get the message.

For travelers without cards or status, interisland bag fees are published as a paid first bag with a higher second bag fee, and Hawaii to mainland is published with a higher first-bag price than interisland. The airlines have also previously promoted discounted interisland rates tied to membership, but with the loyalty transition, travelers are reporting mixed outcomes and sometimes inconsistent handling. If you see an interisland bag quote online and assume it will match what happens at the airport, that assumption may no longer be safe.

7. Codeshares, operating carrier confusion, and mixed itineraries. Carolyn S. asked a question that’s causing some confusion right now. She is booked through Alaska, flying Alaska to Seattle, Hawaiian to Oahu, then American back home, and she asked whether being a Hawaiian Barclays cardholder means they get two free checked bags on all the planes involved. That is a reasonable question, and it is also exactly the kind of itinerary that can mess up baggage fees depending on how the first marketing carrier is coded.

8. Award tickets. Carmen booked an OGG to RNO return using Alaska miles, serviced by Hawaiian, and said she does not understand whether she gets a free checked bag using her Alaska miles and card. Chris raised another version of that question after booking with miles and seeing a confirmation showing two free checked bags, then asking when it changed to one, and whether paying for seats plus taxes on the Hawaiian Barclays card changes the outcome. This is the kind of gray area where frequent flyers are still guessing, and agents and passengers trying to figure this out at the check-in counter is not exactly a system.

What makes all of this especially frustrating is that the confusion is not limited to casual travelers. We fly constantly. We carry the cards that the airlines themselves promote as the solution. And even then, we still find ourselves double-checking bag rules, fare buckets, and benefit triggers before nearly every Hawaii trip. And even drafting this article brought up things we had not yet seen!

When frequent flyers cannot confidently explain what applies to their own reservation, the problem is not traveler error. It is a system that has become too complex and layered to be intuitive.

Baggage is just where this breaks down most noticeably, because the cost shows up at the counter. Great way to wreck the start of a Hawaii vacation, right?

Why this is now unlikely to get easier soon.

A federal rule that would have required airlines, including Hawaiian/Alaska, to disclose baggage fees and other ancillary charges upfront at the time of booking was struck down this week by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Had it survived, the airlines would have been required to show travelers exactly what they would pay for bags before committing to a fare.

With that rule gone, one more protection has been removed, and the burden of decoding fine print and policy layering remains on travelers rather than airlines before purchasing Hawaii air travel.

What to do before your next Hawaii flight.

Before booking, confirm which card you actually hold and what it covers as of today, not what you remember it covering from your last trip. Book directly through the airline whenever possible, and do not assume a third-party booking will preserve your benefits. Make sure your Atmos Rewards number is attached to the reservation before check-in, and do not wait until the airport to find out it was never linked correctly. That has happened to us.

If you are traveling with family, calculate whether two bags for one person or one bag for everyone is the better deal before you arrive at the bag drop, and preferably before purchasing tickets. Check your elite status tier carefully and know whether your bag allowance changed in 2026, especially if you are Silver and assumed you still had two.

And if you have been surprised by bag fees on a Hawaii flight since the Alaska–Hawaiian integration started kicking in, tell us what happened. Which card did you use? Where did you book? Did the benefit work the way you expected, or did you end up paying anyway, like Felix did when he asked, “Will this be the norm?”