Cheapest Miles To Hawaii

Continuing my reborn “cheapest miles” series is the cheapest miles to Hawaii post where I’ll list all the best airline miles deals to Hawaii, and break down some of the best options.

There are tons of great Hawaii deals! There are 11,500 mile flights to Hawaii from the majority of the country, 27,500 business class awards (if you’re willing to get a BOA card), and technically 22,500 mile business class flights on Korean.

I’ll start with options from region based programs, mention revenue based programs, and then distance based programs.

By far the most important and extensive section is the first, region based programs.

 

Region Based Airline Miles Programs To Hawaii

Regarding transfer partners, I left off Marriott which transfers 3:1 to most airline programs.

I also didn’t list out each airline’s credit card(s), which is the only way to earn miles with programs like AA (which has multiple cards, and with both Citi and Barclay).

 

	Economy	Business	First	Transfer Partners
Singapore	11.5 – 17.5	34.5	46	Chase UR (1:1); Amex MR (1:1); Citi TY (1:1)
Korean	12.5	22.5	22.5
Alaska	15 – 22.5	40
FlyingBlue	17.5	43?		Chase UR (1:1); Amex MR (1:1); Citi TY (1:1); Cap1 (1000:750)
Asiana	17.5	27.5	37.5
Etihad (on AA)	17.5 – 22.5	37.5	47.5	Amex MR (1:1); Citi TY (1:1); Cap1 (1000:750)
Hawaiian	17.5 – 30	40		Amex MR (1:1)
ANA (region based award chart)	20	34	60	Amex MR (1:1)
Lufthansa	20	35	65
Virgin Atlantic	20	40		Chase UR (1:1); Amex MR (1:1); Citi TY (1:1)
AA	20 – 22.5	55	80
United	22.5	40		Chase UR (1:1)
Aeroplan	22.5	40	55	Amex MR (1:1); Cap1 (1000:750)
LifeMiles	22.5	40		Amex MR (1:1); Citi TY (1:1); Cap1 (1000:750)
EVA (*A)	25	40	62.5	Citi TY (1:1); Cap1 (1000:750)
LATAM	25	55	70
AeroMexico	34	73.5	81.5	Amex MR (1000:1600)

Three related resources:

1. Check out how to get all these prices by visiting our Complete List Of Airline Award Charts.
2. Check out how to transfer to any mileage program via FM’s List of Transfer Partners.
3. Both of these, and many more resources, can be found on our Resource Page (which you can get to from our home page navigation menu / top of every page).

 

Explaining Price Variations & Deals

I’ll quickly discuss the best deals right now to Hawaii and then explain all the pricing variations to Hawaii.

 

Korean Miles to Hawaii for 12.5k/22.5k miles?

This is by far the best deal for all parts of the US in economy and in general in business. If you check out Korean’s award chart, under its region definitions they explicitly state Hawaii is part of “North America”.

Basically, they price Hawaii as a domestic flight, which makes it by far the cheapest option…

However, they no longer have any transfer partners.

Except, as List of Transfer Partners points out, Korean is a transfer partner of Diner’s Club and Marriott at a 3:1 ratio.

Update: Gary of ViewFromTheWing pointed out to me that there are 4 Korean Air cards with US Bank.

 

Asiana Miles to Hawaii

A little bit ago I made an Asiana Miles award chart and didn’t think much of it, as there are no transfer partners to Asiana, until Gary from VFTW shared it, pointing out how it’s the best award chart for business awards to Europe, and pointing out an Asiana credit card.

Interestingly enough in the next Travel Is Free Podcast on best credit cards with Stefan of RTC, (about to come out),  Stefan points out that due to Bank of America’s application rules, now it’s actually a decent card that you might as well pick up.

In this case, if you do pick up the card, you could use it for a cheap economy flight to Hawaii. But Asiana Miles have the cheapest business class price after Korean.

 

Singapore Miles to Hawaii (11.5k or 17.5k?)

Singapore Airlines is a Star Alliance partner, and it has a typical Star Alliance Award Chart.

In fact, my Best Use Of Singapore Miles post where we created Singapore’s “Star Alliance award chart” shows economy flights beginning at 17,500 Singapore KrisFlyer Miles, which is a heck of a deal already.

 

However, in that post I also point out that Singapore has an Alaska Miles award chart that is incredible.

You can find Singapore KrisFlyer’s award chart for Alaska flights here.

The big limitation here is that Alaska has a very limited number of destinations. Check out this list of Alaska destinations to see if you have Alaska flights to take.

 

First, “Zone 5” includes Hawaii and Alaska.

Flights to Hawaii (Zone 5) are the following prices:

• Zone 1 (west coast): 12,000 miles
• Zone 2 (Canada and western US): 11,500 miles
• Zone 3 (mid-west): 12,500 miles
• Zone 4 (east coast): 17,500 miles, as it’s now cheaper to use Star Alliance award chart / there is no price.

 

It’s also worth mentioning that Singapore has generous stopover rules, and someone in the comments of the Best Use of Singapore Miles shares a route they booked for a trip covering Costa Rica, Hawaii, DC, and Belize for 35,000 miles!

 

Alaska Miles to Hawaii

There are two ways to use Alaska Miles to get to Hawaii, redeeming on Alaska flights or AA flights.

Alaska offers 15,000 mile prices to Hawaii when redeeming for Alaska flights, however, the price for this US to Hawaii route is technically a range of 15,000 to 50,000 miles. And like Delta Miles, you don’t really know what you’ll get until you search.

Searching for Seattle to Hawaii I found more options…

But as you can see below, when I search to/from Austin, I see far fewer options.

However, there are 15,000 mile flights, typically on Wed, and there are also 17,500 mile flights. But as you can see, it’s not uncommon for the flights to be 25,000 or 30,000 miles.

 

Therefore, if you live in a city that Alaska serves, it’s definitely worth checking.

You also get free stopovers on oneways with Alaska, so you could stopover in Seattle or some focus-city on the west coast.

 

Stopovers With Alaska Miles

I’ve written about Stopover Tricks with Alaska Miles (and loopholes with Alaska miles that are related), and the point is simple, that I booked a ticket from Mexico to Hawaii with a stopover in Texas (for months).

So for the price of a oneway from Mexico to Texas, I got to tack on a flight to Hawaii at no extra cost.

You could do the same thing in reverse, and you could even do it to and from Europe (and get off-peak pricing to Europe if you start your flight home from Hawaii in the off-peak dates, even if your Europe flight is in peak season).

And this works for AA flights, not just Alaska flights.

 

Off-Peak Pricing on AA flights:

• Etihad miles on AA flights = 17,500miles
  • Jan 12 – Mar 8 & Aug 22 & Dec 15
  • Yes, it says “Aug 22 & Dec 15”, although it seems like it should be Aug 22 to Dec 15.
• AA miles = 20,000 miles
  • To Hawaii: December 29 – March 12, August 11 – November 18, November 24 – December 10
    From Hawaii: January 7 – March 19, August 18 – November 27, December 3 – December 25

Check out my post on Using Etihad Miles on AA’s Old Award Chart.

 

Hawaiian Airlines Miles Price Variations

There are two things that create such a price Variation (which you can find details about here).

First, Hawaiian Miles divide flight prices to Hawaii from the US into two regions, East Coast for 20,000 miles and West Coast for 30,000 miles. Yet, both have “First” class prices at 40,000 miles, so at that rate, you might as well fly business/first from East Coast.

Second, You get a small discount if you have the Hawaiian Credit Card or status, making the prices 17,500 and 26,250. There’s unfortunately no discount for premium cabin.

 

Delta & Southwest to Hawaii

Delta Miles to Hawaii

There are good Delta options, particularly from the west coast, however, the cheapest options are rare.

Still for a flight to San Jose (among other west coast destinations) I found plenty of 13,000 Delta Mile flights to/from Hawaii.

Other than west coast destinations, it’s pretty typical that Delta miles flights to Hawaii are 25,000 miles in economy.

 

Southwest Points To Hawaii

Southwest prices are basically what I described above, cheap from the west coast and not yet anywhere else.

Southwest has newly launched routes to Hawaii and looking at any destination near me, prices for a oneway start at 30,000, sometimes 40,000.

However, checking from SCJ to OGG I found some 13,000 mile flights.

This is an extra amazing deal if you have the companion pass! Hopefully the good prices spread east.

 

Distance Based Programs To Hawaii

Since price varies depending on how far you fly with some airline miles programs, I decided to show 3 examples.

But I have to say, normally distance based programs have tons of sweet spots, but here there are 11 region based programs with options for 20,000 miles or less, and the distance based programs are typically more.

 

FYI: This first example is the only one of the distance based programs with the transfer partners shown.

All prices are roundtrip.

 

West Coast Example: SEA-HNL-SEA

	Economy	Business	First	Transfer Partners
British Airways	26	78	103	Chase UR (1:1); Amex MR (1:1)
Asia Miles	60	90	140	Chase UR (1:1); Citi TY (1:1)
JAL	37 – 40	60 – 80	90 – 100

 

Mid US Example: AUS-LAX-HNL-LAX-AUS

	Economy	Business	First
British Airways	48	121.5	191
Asia Miles	65	100	150
JAL	40 – 45	80	100 – 120

 

East Coast Example: JFK-HNL-JFK

	Economy	Business	First
British Airways	51.5	154.5	206
Asia Miles	70	110	160
JAL	47 – 50	85	110 – 135

 

Conclusion

From the west coast with direct flights, British Airways Avios for 13,000 miles is a great option.

But you have 11,500 miles of flight from the majority of cities that have Alaska flights.

But there are lots of great economy options, even 17,500 miles on FlyingBlue (for Delta flights) is a great deal.

 

Korean and Asiana by far have best Business Class miles options to Hawaii, however, they are some of the harder miles to earn.

But my cheapest miles series is to show all the best options that you could pursue, or maybe to show an option with a program you already have.

 

Since I get the benefit of some of the best commenters, please let me know if there are any deals I’m missing.