Hawaiian Flights On Alaska Hide Seat Maps Until After Payment

Using an Alaska Airlines credit for a short $234 per-person off-season Hawaiian interisland round-trip from Kauai to Honolulu seemed straightforward. Because the “wallet” credit could only be accessed on the Alaska side of the website, we booked there. It should have been simple, but we hit a snag.

As soon as we went to AlaskaAir.com to apply the credit to the Hawaiian flight, something odd happened. There was no seat map. The site said we couldn’t view the seat map until after payment. We backtracked and clicked through every tab twice, certain we’d missed something. We hadn’t. A small note appeared instead: “Seats available after booking.” This meant paying first and finding out later.

We first started hearing about this problem from Beat of Hawaii readers who reported losing seat assignments or being unable to choose seats after booking Hawaiian flights that appeared when buying on Alaska’s site. Yesterday, we encountered the same issue. Curious whether this was an isolated glitch or something bigger, we decided to test it ourselves.

In an era when every airline promises booking transparency, this felt like a step backward. What followed revealed a much bigger problem hiding in plain sight, one that leaves Hawaii travelers paying for seats they can’t see and facing a consumer protection gap with no easy fix. If it was this confusing for us, people who eat, sleep, and breathe this stuff, we wondered how baffling it must be for everyone else trying to plan a vacation in Hawaii.

The 7-day trap.

Most travelers are aware of the Department of Transportation’s 24-hour cancellation rule, which allows for a full refund if a trip is canceled within a day. But what’s less known is the exception: according to federal regulations, that protection doesn’t apply to flights departing in less than seven days.

That means anyone booking a last-minute vacation, emergency, business meeting, or medical appointment is immediately locked in once they click purchase. This applies to all airlines.

Now, combine that with Alaska’s handling of Hawaiian-operated flights on its website. The booking page doesn’t show a seat map before purchase, and once you’ve paid, you may discover your family is scattered across the plane or that you’re stuck in middle seats with no refund option.

For travelers with mobility issues, small children, or urgent itineraries, that’s not a minor frustration. It’s a genuine consumer protection gap under the Alaska-Hawaiian merger with little or no oversight.

The workaround problem.

There is a workaround: booking directly through HawaiianAirlines.com still lets travelers see seat maps before paying. But for anyone holding Alaska wallet credits, or thinking that since this is now all-Alaska with the two companies operating under a single operating certificate, that path hits a wall immediately.

That solution, however, has its own drawbacks. If you have Alaska wallet credits, like we did, you can’t use them on Hawaiian’s site. I had over $1,000 in Alaska wallet credits, money from previous canceled flights that we wanted to use on Hawaiian flights. That forced us back to AlaskaAir.com, where the seat map remains hidden until payment.

Travelers using Alaska wallet credits should note that those funds can’t be seen or used on Hawaiian’s platform, forcing them into the very booking system that hides seat assignments.

We asked about how credits work if you change or cancel a Hawaiian flight booked through Alaska. For now, nothing has changed. Until April 2026, any credit from a Hawaiian-operated flight still goes back to Hawaiian, not to your Alaska wallet.

That means the two credit systems remain separate. Hawaiian credits must still be used all at once toward a single new booking. At the same time, Alaska’s wallet system lets you draw down the balance over multiple transactions within a year of the original ticket date.

Even when trying to sidestep Alaska’s booking system, the confusion continues. When we attempted to book another flight through Google Flights, the Hawaiian Airlines form still defaulted to “Atmos Rewards” instead of HawaiianMiles. That shift happened automatically, with no option to enter an old HawaiianMiles number. The changeover, intended to unify loyalty systems, now leaves travelers wondering which account to use.

It’s an integration gap affecting thousands of Hawaii-based travelers who rely on wallet credits from canceled or changed flights.

BOH Tip: what we’d do next time.

If you’re booking Hawaiian flights through Alaska Airlines, open a second browser window at the same time and check HawaiianAirlines.com directly. You’ll be able to view the seat map before paying, which not only prevents surprises after checkout but also helps you avoid having to cancel when you discover that the only seats left are two middles you do not want.

Now that we understand how the two systems work, we’d actually rather book Hawaiian flights on the Alaska website. Here’s why:

If you cancel or miss your trip, that credit automatically returns to your Alaska wallet, which is simple, functional, and easy to reuse. Over the years, we’ve lost hundreds, maybe thousands, through Hawaiian’s more complicated refund process. Alaska’s wallet system finally fixes that part of the experience.

The bigger picture: a merger moving too fast.

This booking issue isn’t isolated. It’s part of a larger pattern we’ve been tracking since Alaska’s purchase of Hawaiian Airlines was announced. Pilots have warned of rushed integration, citing rapid shifts in routes, schedules, and aircraft assignments. One 30-year Hawaiian pilot told us, “Routes, schedules, flight procedures, seniority, domiciles, aircraft, and seat assignments are about to change. This process is going faster than any previous airline acquisition in history.”

Three major system outages have already occurred during the transition. If Alaska still can’t display Hawaiian seat maps before purchase, it raises real questions about whether its infrastructure can handle the far more complex work still ahead.

There’s also a business logic to this dysfunction. When passengers can’t see seats before paying, they’re more likely to pay extra for peace of mind. Alaska charges up to $29 for seat selection on many flights, but without seeing the seat map, that fee starts looking like insurance rather than choice.

Even without this issue, the pricing stands out. That $234 fare for a 40-minute flight between islands is approaching what we once called “$300 to say howdy.”

By hiding the seat map until after payment, Alaska pressures travelers into paying more out of fear of ending up in undesirable seats. Combined with the lack of refund rights within seven days, it starts to feel less like marketing and more like entrapment.

Here are good questions for Alaska Airlines:

• Why can’t your booking system display Hawaiian Airlines’ seat maps before payment?
• Are you aware that this creates consumer protection issues for bookings within seven days of departure?
• What is the timeline for full system integration?
• Should passengers use HawaiianAirlines.com or AlaskaAir.com for Hawaiian flights?
• Will Alaska wallet credits eventually work on Hawaiian’s platform?
• How many complaints have you received about this issue since the merger? Is this a known bug or working as designed?

Until Alaska addresses these questions publicly, passengers will continue to face unnecessary stress and financial uncertainty. We’ll update this article if Alaska responds.

How has your experience been booking Hawaiian flights since Alaska took over?