Alaska And Hawaiian Will Allow Miles Transfers This Month, Status Matches This Year

With the deal for Alaska Airlines to buy Hawaiian Airlines ,now done, they’re beginning to move forward on integrating the two carriers.

  • We know that Alaska has agreed to maintain flight capacity between the Hawaiian islands, but also that they plan to move widebodies to Seattle. Honolulu will see less long haul, and Alaska will get into long haul flying. That won’t happen right away.

  • But the real play for frequent flyers is in the miles. Although Hawaiian was the better program for upgrades between the mainland and Hawaiian, Alaska’s miles are worth far more and with more and better partners. HawaiianMiles members get a nice upgrade in value.

  • And there’s an easy play to get Hawaiian Airlines credit cards and Alaska cards, knowing that the miles from Hawaiian’s will go into your Alaska account. In fact, Hawaiian Airlines credit card customers can transfer miles between Hawaiian accounts for free. So if your spouse, parents, inlaws, and siblings all get Hawaiian cards (or just have HawaiianMiles laying around) those can be transferred to you, and will wind up in your Alaska account.

  • HawaiianMiles is an American Express Membership Rewards transfer partner. They even ran a 20% transfer bonus that ended August 31. Some folks speculatively transferred to take advantage of that, but in any case Alaska doesn’t partner with any of the bank transfer currencies and Amex will presumably lose the transfer relationship once HawaiianMiles gets sunset.

Alaska has now told us a bit about what to expect, and things will be happening sooner than I’d have expected.

  • While combining loyalty programs won’t be announced until “mid-2025,” “later this month” you will be able to “seamlessly transfer miles between Alaska’s Mileage Plan and HawaiianMiles at a 1:1 ratio, for no charge.”

  • Already Alaska Airlines lounge members can use those lounges when flying on Hawaiian (i.e. Hawaiian counts as an eligible partner airline for Alaska lounge access).

  • Status matching between the programs will happen “later this year.” And they’ll combine your qualifying miles between the two programs to determine your tier status, so if you’ve earned with both Alaska and Hawaiian the total between the two will count.

We know that eventually they will combine into a single loyalty program. I have wondered if they would brand the programs separately (some members would be Hawaiian Airlines Mileage Plan members, while others would be Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan members, but it’s the same program). Regardless all of the miles will go to the same place whether you do these early transfers or not.

However there’s one interesting wrinkle for those transferring American Express Membership Rewards points into Hawaiian, planning to move those to Alaska right away. A long-standing rule in the program is that miles transferred into Hawaiian cannot be transferred out:

Points/Miles transferred into a HawaiianMiles account from [American Express Membership Rewards may not be transferred to a third party loyalty program.

I don’t think that will be an issue with transfers within Alaska Air Group. Mileage Plan is not a transfer to a third party. And this isn’t a rule specifically put into place in consideration of the merger. I have to think these transfers will be permitted later this month, not just when the programs combine. But the first 1,000 miles transferred into Hawaiian from Amex, and then over to Alaska, will tell us with certainty.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. I was just approved for the Barclays Hawaiian airlines card. Does any one know if the Barclays version is a true travel card for European website international purchases (train tickets etc)?

    The BofA Alaska Airlines card is a joke and NOT a true travel card as every transaction not in person is denied by 3D secure. I will never use BofA again as I have paid a fortune in forex transaction fees when the card is denied and I have to use a Chase non travel card that ALWAYS works.

  2. If we have status on AA or have Admirals Club membership will we be able to use the Hawaiian lounges like we can Alaska Lounges? I am sure eventually but was hoping soon because I have a Hawaii trip coming up

  3. Hopefully this will be a good investment for Alaskan Airlines to aquire Hawaiian Airlines. I guess one will have to see how this deal turns out

  4. Not entirely related to the issue of mileage but I have to wonder if the driving factor for this – in addition to the obvious desire to lock down the Hawaii market – isn’t to effectively buy expertise (way station employees, logistics, pilots, mechanics, etc) flying long haul. Hawaiian’s 787s are relatively new but that long haul network experience has a ton of value. I wonder what will become of HAs 330s and 321s though.

  5. I didn’t see this anywhere – when does “Hawaiian” become part of OneWorld (so OneWorld elite benefits become available)?

  6. Anyone have any datapoint about getting the sign up bonus on the Barclays Hawaiian card after previously getting it in the past? I closed my card over a year ago and would like to apply again now that the merger is going through, but the terms indicate that a sign-up bonus *may* not be granted again if you’ve had the same card in the past.

  7. United uses Hawaiian for inter island flights. Jet blue uses Hawaiian also. How will
    These companies be affected?

  8. I transferred 150k from Amex during the 20% bonus, got 180k. Man I wish I had transferred a lot more but it was speculative. Hat tip DoC. I may transfer even more without the bonus, hindsight is rough haha.

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