When Alaska acquired Hawaiian Airlines, travelers were told HawaiianMiles would not be devalued. That promise came up repeatedly once the Atmos transition started. A lot of HawaiianMiles holders heard it, and many figured their miles were safe enough to hold.
The promise had a qualifier that we didn’t even pay attention to at the time. The value protection applied only to miles redeemed for Hawaiian/Alaska carrier-operated flights. Long-game partner awards were never included in that protection.
That was especially hard to take given that expanded partner access had been one of the biggest selling points of moving to Atmos in the first place. Hawaiian had relatively few partners. Atmos promised a much larger world.
How HawaiianMiles holders actually use these miles.
BOH editors Rob and Jeff did what many HawaiianMiles holders did. We kept miles through the transition because the value for us was primarily in partner awards. We were not saving them for Hawaiian or Alaska flights, which tend to be less costly than international flights. Those were never the reason any people collected these miles.
The normal redemption pattern from Honolulu for us starts with a flight to Los Angeles or San Francisco. From there, the itinerary continues on a partner airline to Europe, Asia, Australia, or New Zealand. Japan Airlines, Fiji Airways, Iberia, Finnair, British, and others have been the key partners for those trips. That is not unusual. It has long been the way many mileage-saving travelers used these programs when they wanted to go somewhere beyond flights between the mainland and Hawaii or vice versa.
Award prices just jumped.
The pricing jumps were first flagged by travelers in FlyerTalk forums yesterday and have been spreading quickly across loyalty communities since. Over the past day, the same types of partner awards have been priced much higher.
West Coast to Tokyo on Japan Airlines had been in the 42,500-mile range one-way and is now showing around 65,000 miles. The West Coast to Australia or New Zealand via Fiji had been 37,500 to 42,500 one-way and just jumped to 65,000. Europe awards that had been roughly 30,000 to 35,000 miles one way are now showing 45,000 to 55,000. On some partner routes, travelers are reporting increases that exceed 700%.
The jump is worse when a connection is added, and for many travelers, a connection is almost never optional. Next month, we are flying from Hawaii to Barcelona via London. That is just how you get to Europe from Hawaii, for example. Under the old pricing, that itinerary worked well. Under what the system is showing right now, it looks very different.
The merger language explains how this happened.
The merger agreement protected value only on Alaska-operated flights. Alaska can point to its own flights and say it kept its promise. Partner awards were outside that language from the start. Yet those are the awards many travelers held miles for and were excited about during the HawaiianMiles conversion and the promise of more partner awards.
But a gap is now obvious. Some travelers in forums believe the system may be mispricing multi-segment partner itineraries, and airline booking engines have produced errors like this before, so it is possible.
Whether this is a deliberate change, a reaction to fuel prices and disruptions, or something else isn’t clear. But the fine print hole that left partner awards unprotected exists regardless of the cause.
HawaiianMiles holders sat through the HawaiianMiles mess largely because partner awards were still worth saving for. If those awards now cost a lot more miles, that value is going fast. How does this impact your travel plans?
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I am shocked (not really) that using my saved miles now has almost doubled to use. It’s just plain greed of Alaska Airlines to do this to faithful customers.
Gee, what a surprise! Gottat read that ‘fine print’, probably drafted by lawyers. Still, we have seen Hawaiian flight points requirements double in the past, so I guess this problem with Alaska shouldn’t come as a ‘gotcha.’ It’s the trend that has been in place for some time, and it isn’t going to go away. And the beat goes on-on-on-on . . . . .
I’ve been happily flying Hawaiian for decades, despite some ups and downs with their call center, often using points to upgrade to first class. I bought the hype from Alaska when the acquisition was announced and I transferred 200,000 more AmEx points to my Hawaiian miles account.
Having flown Hawaiian (since the acquisition) to Oahu and Kauai, I am pleased to say that the in-flight experiences were very good and consistent with prior experiences. But…that is as far as it goes…
I can Not possibly express how how much I Regret transferring more AmEx points to Hawaiian/Alaska miles. I have tried three times to upgrade a flight using (formerly Hawaiian and now) ATMOS miles and each time I’ve been told that Alaska no longer allows this (as previously reported by BOH). When I asked if this was temporary or permanent, I received a non-answer.
And…to the point of this particular article, mainland and inter-island flights now require more miles per segment.
A little deception in my opinion.
Who determines the number of award miles/points required to fly on a partner airline? Is it Alaska Airlines or is it the partner airline?
Not only did we get burned with the mileage deal, I renewed my Premier Club membership so I could take advantage of the perks. My membership is due to expire in May 2026 but I have been told it is no longer valid. The very least they could have done is let us enjoy the benefits I paid for until the expiration date.
Wow! Maybe now I can be glad that I used up most of my HA miles a year and half ago. Bait & Switches becoming more common than ever these days. Was sad to first see Aloha go, now Hawaiian … as Hawai’i gets ground into just another corporate adventure … If one can afford it! As a boomer who grew up in the islands, has not been easy to see how the Hawaiian culture keeps getting grounded into dust as well. And before 9-11, flying used to be so much fun.
aloha..Yes, I was getting ready to book our annual trip to the mainland. late Feb I checked and first class 40,000 miles one way. a week later 95,000 miles!! we save the miles all year on our credit card for this trip but dont have enough for these!!! going to try your 3 seat trick but a bit nervous. What’s next from them!!!
Ane T