As I noted last month, Barclays now issues the Hawaiian Airlines® World Elite MasterCard®.
When I wrote about the product previously, there was no referral credit available for it. For full disclosure, now there is, I do receive credit if you use my link when signing up for the card.
The card offers 35,000 miles after $1000 spend within 90 days.
The Value of the Signup Bonus — A Free Ticket to Hawaii.. Or More Than One
Since HawaiianMiles cardmembers get a 2500 mile discount each way on award travel, this is enough for a roundtrip economy ticket between the mainland US and Hawaii.
A couple could each get the card, each spend $1000, and have enough points for two tickets to Hawaii.
What’s more, cardholders are allowed to pool points across multiple accounts (10 transfers per year). So multiple friends and family can sign up for the card and share their points with you. (Or you could just redeem their points directly, since Hawaiian offers one-way awards.)
Additional Card Benefits
The card also provides one free checked bag when it is used for Hawaiian Airlines travel. It’s an $89 annual fee card that has no foreign currency transaction fees.
The card also offers a $100 discount on a companion ticket for roundtrip coach travel between Hawaii and North America each year at the account anniversary.
And it earns 5,000 bonus miles after $10,000 in spend each year, meaning that it effectively earns 1.5 miles per dollar on that amount of spending.
Is This a Good Card for Your Spending?
The Hawaiian card has a useful signup bonus and some good perks — but it’s not strong for ongoing spend (it could be a good card to get and to hang onto but not to use frequently for spend). It earns double points for spending on Hawaiian Airlines purchases, and one point per dollar on all other spend.
I still think the best card for everyday earning is the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card.
And the Hawaian card isn’t even the best for earning Hawaiian miles. The best card for earning Hawaiian miles is actually the American Express Premier Rewards Gold card — because American Express Membership Rewards points transfer to Hawaiian points, and because this is the best Membership Rewards-earning points card (with 3x on airfare purchased from airlines, and 2x on gas and groceries). It’s going to earn more points for most people and the points can be moved to Hawaiian if that travel is your goal.
(Note that cards in this post offer credit to me if you’re approved using my links. The opinions, analyses, and evaluations here are mine. The content is not provided or commissioned by American Express, by Chase, by Citibank, US Bank, Bank of America, Barclays or any other company. They have not reviewed, approved or endorsed what I have to say.)
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wow, your headlines are starting to sound like MMS…
FTC will have fun with ‘free’ in your headline. Good luck with that.
@John, the FTC I’m not worried about in this regard, and my disclosures on costs (eg security taxes) are more than Hawaiian does on their own award chart, but I never want anyone to think I’m misleading — it hadn’t occured to me anyone would take it that way – I’ve changed ‘Free’ to ‘Award’.
So it’s a $89 ticket not a free ticket…
Wow, this is one of the rare Barclays cards that does not restrict access for residents of Iowa, might have to add it to the next AoR.
So thanks for answering why this card is on every blog in the last few days.
Any experience with availability?
@Gary, any idea how long do the miles take to post? I met my spend 2 months ago and the 35,000 has yet to show up. When I log into my Barclays account it says I have them in my Hawaiian account but the Hawaiian account does not show them.
As a reminder, Hawaiian points x-fer to Hilton 1:2 so you’d get 70,000 hilton points with that…
@Josh I believe that’s been reduced to 1:1.5
@Liz have you asked barclays what account # they are sending the miles to? Possible they didn’t accurately log your account when you opened the card, and they created a new account for you
Correct me if I’m wrong, but for the “free ticket to Hawaii”, I think this is really only useful to people who live in a Hawaiian Airlines gateway city OR a hub where one of their partners operate. Otherwise you are probably looking at a double or triple connection (and the additional complication of finding award flights on those segments). Alternatively, if you can get to Hawaii via another airline then these miles can be useful for hopping between the islands.
In response to The Points Guy hawking this same card earlier this week, I noted that he failed to mention a very important caveat about applying for this card: Barclays will probably not let you have more than 2 of their credit cards. Gary, given your extensive knowledge of the frequent flyer game, I’m surprised you didn’t mention this. Rapid Travel Chai has written about this, and it’s been widely discussed on Flyertalk. It’s something that most experienced “churners” would be aware of by now.
So if you can’t get all the cards from Barclay’s, you have to prioritize. I think everyone wants the soon-to-be-closed US Airways card. And many people like the Arrival card. If you want those, the odds strongly suggest you can’t also have the Hawaiian card.
@iahphx I’d actually disagree, in the scenario you describe you’d probably be cycling products. And the audience for this post isn’t churners, it’s folks whose interest is – as indicated in the title – Hawaii. I write for many diverse audiences, and not every post will be useful to everyone. But I still don’t think your theory is correct.
Gary —
If you don’t believe my theory, test it: if you already have 2 Barclay’s cards, apply for a third and tell us what happens.
Add me to the list of folks who have been denied a third barclayscard — I made the mistake of signing up for the Wyndham card last year, and when I tried for the Miles and More, they wouldn’t budge. I already had their arrival card, so that’s apparently my max of 2.
@iahphx – Your theory is bunk. I think it is dependent upon your credit score and/or income. My score is quite high and a few weeks ago I was approved for the Arrival to compliment my existing US Air (acquired in Jan) and LH M&M cards (longtime cardholder). They were also gonna automatically send me a Hawaiian card because I’m an existing BoA HA cardholder, but I stopped that before it happened (gotta preserve the ability to secure a future signup bonus!).
@iahphx – That’s not my point, it’s not about how many you can have at once, it’s about the order in which you might cycle the number they will allow you to have.
DL_Flyer —
I can assure you that my theory is not bunk, and a high credit score and hundreds of thousands in income will certainly not protect you from being declined by Barclay’s for additional cards. Rapid Travel Chai has a discussion on this but, sadly, I don’t know of a single source that has compiled all the recent data. Rest assured, though, that if you apply for lots of credit cards, and put in more than 2 Barclay’s apps in a year, your chances of getting more than 2 approvals is low.
Here’s one of many recent discussions about this problem. Barclay’s ain’t Chase, and treating them as such will certainly result in different results.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/credit-card-programs/1554669-advice-third-barclays-card.html