Summer travel to Hawaii has always been expensive. Let’s face it. That was understood, budgeted for, and often tolerated because the trip still felt worth it once you got here. What changed this year is that summer pricing crossed a line where the numbers no longer make sense for many visitors who once came routinely in summer.
A roundtrip economy ticket from Portland to Kauai priced at $1,329. Southwest nonstop Las Vegas to Maui at $1,020. Those are not peak holiday outliers or last-seat panic buys. They are standard summer prices that show up several months in advance. For a family of four, airfare alone can now exceed $5,000 before bags, seats, rentals, or lodging are added. That is not “pricey Hawaii.” That is a huge shift.
This may be the moment where summer Hawaii stops being merely expensive and starts becoming irrational for value-conscious travelers. When summer stops making sense, travelers do not stop coming to Hawaii. They start coming at different times, which is why shoulder season is more important than ever. And as more travelers shift into those windows, the prices there do not stay lower forever.
What Hawaii shoulder season still delivers for now.
Lower airfare is the obvious part, but it is only the beginning. Shoulder season flights are not just cheaper. They are cheaper enough to change how the entire trip cost works out, especially for families and repeat visitors who carefully run the numbers.
Availability improves in ways summer travelers often forget exist. Hotels that feel permanently booked suddenly have options available again. Rental cars are less constrained. Restaurants are easier to get into without planning days, weeks, or months ahead. Iconic beaches feel accessible rather than overrun. Parking stops being as much of a competitive sport. And best of all, in Hawaii, none of this requires a weather tradeoff that would make the trip feel in any way compromised.
We covered this dynamic last summer in Why Summer Travel Feels Broken. Hawaii’s Shoulder Season Doesn’t, and it became clear that readers were already feeling it. One put it simply by saying it felt like the Hawaii they used to love, before it got so crowded and expensive.
What changed since last summer.
Last year, summer travel felt broken. This year, airfare pricing proves it’s over the top.
The summer 2026 fares we documented in Summer 2026 Hawaii Airfares Hit A New Ceiling. Even We’re Surprised revealed something important. Airlines are no longer testing the ceiling. They have raised it and are watching demand hold far better than many expected.
Before COVID, summer airfare to Hawaii tended to top out around $700 from the West Coast, with predictable spikes around holidays like July 4. That ceiling has effectively been reset to $800, $1,000, and in many cases, well beyond. Southwest, long viewed as a Hawaii travel pressure valve on prices, is now in the same price range as everyone else. The old belief that shoulder season exists because airlines need help filling planes no longer applies.
When airlines learn that peak demand will absorb dramatically higher prices, they stop needing to discount around the edges. That is when timing behavior starts to change, not because travelers suddenly become strategic, but because the summer default becomes that much harder to justify.
Europe shows what happens next.
This is where Europe serves, not as a comparison destination but as a preview of what’s coming.
According to new data cited by the New York Times this week, short-term rental demand in Florence was up more than 40% in chilly February compared with historic norms, while August demand was actually down. Expedia reports that fall flight searches to southern Europe are up more than 50% year over year. And AirDNA described the market as less seasonal than it used to be, largely as a result of retiring travelers who are no longer tied to school calendars.
The important point is not that summer travel is disappearing. It is not. Off-season demand in Europe grew so much that the pricing and crowd advantage started to erode. Europe did not lose summer travel. It lost the payoff for avoiding it. Hawaii is under the same pressure, just one step behind.
Why Hawaii has not followed Europe yet.
Americans remain far more calendar-locked than Europeans. School schedules dominate planning. Summer still feels like the default, even as the value proposition erodes. Hawaii has also been positioned for decades as a summer destination, reinforcing habits that no longer align with the current pricing reality.
There is another key difference. Europe’s shift accelerated because summer travel became physically unpleasant in ways shoulder season could fix. Hawaii’s summer is still more comfortable, especially when it comes to temperatures. The friction in Hawaii comes from cost and congestion instead. That slows the behavioral change, but it does not prevent it. And when pricing moves first, habits usually follow.
In Europe, flexible retirees played a large role in flattening calendar choices once the value equation changed. That same group exists for Hawaii and has not moved in large numbers yet. Once it does, airlines and hotels will notice quickly, and pricing models will adjust just as fast.
That is when shoulder season stops feeling like an insider window and starts looking more like a second peak.
What this means for Hawaii travelers right now.
Summer is now the worst value for Hawaii travel by a wide margin. Shoulder season is where Hawaii still offers both better value and breathing room, with lower airfares, better availability, and a calmer experience that more closely resembles what many travelers remember.
That advantage remains because most people have not changed their island travel habits yet. Shoulder season works precisely because summer remains the default choice, even as the summer travel math keeps getting harder to defend.
Have you already stopped booking summer trips to Hawaii, or does summer still feel like the default even as the value keeps slipping away?
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We just booked our flights last night… sticker shock for us! We were in Lahaina just before the devastating first 3 years ago. This year there are less flights out of PDX and we paid $2,096 for 2 adult RT tickets. 13 members of our family are going this year, but we all were in charge of making our own reservations. We are 71 and 74 years old, but this might be our last trip to Hawaii. We loved everything about our last trip.
I have never booked a flight, & I would like to go see a relative in Hilo, & wondered what month would be best, & how far ahead of time to buy tickets, reasonable, if that’s possible ?
I just got back from a week in the Caribbean. A beer that would cost $10 in Hawaii is $3 there. Hawaii has successfully ran off the people who kept the state afloat when the current recession gets worse Hawaii will be hit the hardest out of any state.
I have been searching and watching and searching and watching. Finally scored tickets for June for just under $700 from ATL. The option of going nonstop to HNL has disappear as that flight is now $1400!! I’ve been able to get my rental car from $1800 down to $1300 for a SUV!! Going to enjoy my month there…I am beginning to wonder how long I can afford to go. Condo, airfare and car are $5k……and then we gotta buy food and adult beverages!
Thanks now shoulder season will be more busy and prices will increase to what popular summer time rates. Summer time rates will also increase because summer rates are generally considered the most expensive. All and all IMO Hawaii has made it more expensive in fee’s, taxes, reservation costs and such so the tourist has to spend more every month and open the wallet more wide. I think Hawaii’s plan is to have tourists come rich and leave wondering how to pay off the debt. Same as Disneyland, Las Vegas, treats their tourists. Nice to know tourist’s book 3-6 months in advance so at some point one feels obligated to pay no matter what.
Price is a factor in where I choose to go.
I don’t know what you mean by “Hawaii’s summer is still more comfortable, especially when it comes to temperatures.” I am a 40+ year Hawaii resident and summers here have become utterly miserable. Climate change has taken its toll. Temps used to rarely exceed 90°, now that’s a frequent occurrence. Trade winds used to persist into late Summer, now they’re just gone. Rain is more common in the Sumner than it used to be. It all adds up to a hot, sticky mess for me, so I leave early in the Spring and don’t return until the holidaze.
We always go in shoulder season- but we book 6-9 months out. Have always flown Hawaiian or Alaska and mostly FC.
Don’t kid yourselves – shoulder season is no bargain either. We’ve always traveled shoulder season and what used to cost $550-600 (and that included food) for premium seats roundtrip are currently closer to $900 (seats only). Several reasons, of course, that it all adds up. $10 extra if you want an aisle seat, etc. I know because I just booked for May 2026. And you can bet that once people start booking shoulder, instead of summer, the shoulder season prices will go up as well. We were able to make it work because of mileage and companion fares.
Our last trip to Hawaii only because we promised the kids/grandkids over a year ago that we’d do a family vacay there. Won’t be visiting again.
I have checked our costs, for 2 people, on our yearly trips to Hawaii, January -February, to compare those costs to those stated in articles published in the Beat of Hawaii. For this article, I checked our flight costs for the past 3 years. Here’s the rundown for our repetitive 4 Hawaiian Air flights: 1. LAX or SFO to HNL 2. HNL to the next island 3. That island to OGG 4. OHG to SFO. This year’s total cost including taxes cost is $1,400. The two years previous were just under this amount. Pretty consistent. When flying Hawaiian, we fly economy. The flight from the West Coast is under 5 hours and is tolerable. Inter-island flights are a “piece of cake.” BTW, we are seniors and I am 6 feet tall!
We have the luxury to travel anytime since our kids and our group of friend’s kids are all done with school so we do avoid Hawaii in the Summer when it’s expensive and crowded. We tend to go when fares are lower if possible but have also looked at traveling international instead for a better value. Sometimes flying to Hawaii during peak is higher than flying to Asia or Europe off peak so we’d rather travel there instead.
This is a great article, but still leaves me with the same question…. Why? What has changed? I would love to be enlightened on why the fares are so ridiculous….
Supply and demand. Larger demand than supply, so prices are up. Airlines now use algorithms to find the sweet spot with number of planes/flights vs available passengers and constantly adjust to keep planes full. The days of flying a jet to Hawaii (or just about anywhere else) with empty seats near you are just about over.
Charge what the market will bear is the business motto. If the planes are full at those prices, that is what people are willing to pay. basic economics.
If the planes are 1/2 empty, put the seats on sale at the last minute. 1/2 empty planes teach the airlines what the top is – at the time, as it’s always changing.
Thanks for the valuable information you provide. Traveling to Honolulu for the whole month of February 2027 any suggestions when I should book airfare(from NYC)?
Rule of thumb is 12-10 weeks before travel.
create a flight alert with Google, Kayak, and any others. Cap One (hopper) used to be good at predicting but I haven’t found it to be very accurate recently. Start watching the prices, so you will know a good price when you see it.