There’s been a ton of battling back and forth over Hawaii fares the past few weeks, mostly it’s been Delta coming into other airline hubs and dropping price down to the $450 level, for example DC or Chicago through Atlanta to Honolulu. US Airways has gone into Delta hubs and done the same thing.
Yesterday Delta dropped Philadelphia – Atlanta – Honolulu down to $450 or so, it’s gone now unfortunately.
This morning I woke up to United offering these fares out of its own hubs with fares as low as $518 from the East Coast. Two-day minimum stay, fares are in the G and T buckets, and June/July/August seem to come in about $100 more. But I found Labor Day Weekend from DC for $538.
Naturally, I don’t expect the fares to last long, certainly not until tomorrow but it could be gone come early afternoon.
The point isn’t to jump on United’s Hawaii fars, though of course if you live in DC or Chicago or Houston it’s a great deal and you may want to grab it if you have any interest in Hawaii.
The point is, rather, that these fare sales pop up all the time especially with Hawaii, at least a couple of times a year. Be on the lookout for them, they make great mileage run fares but also a great opportunity to pop over or if it’s a destination you’re interested in for a trip especially with a family they make great purchase opportunities — just keep your eye open for fare sales and that’s when you have your short window to jump on ’em. The United fares, for instance, are available through end of schedule so if it’s winter 2012 you’re interested in you can grab those now.
Hesitate and you’ll be back into the $800s or $900s…
I’ve never looked into mileage runs, but people must spend a lot of money if they would fly to Hawaii at a rate of $500 to accumulate miles. I figured most people who do mile runs find very very cheap rates to places where no one wants to fly.
Looks like I could do $558 right out of MCO for the same Labor Day weekend. One of the routings for $559 even offers MCO-EWR-HNL (as opposed to the more traditional MCO-IAH-HNL) for additional miles.
Chris-it’s the eqms as well as the rdms.
$460 on both UA and CO out of DCA and IAD in Jan., 2012.
Yeah, the idea that you should spend $500 to fly to Hawaii FOR THE MILES is silly, even if you are an elite member and can accumulate double miles.
As a vacation opportunity, though, it makes sense. Hawaii awards are somewhat of a bargain from the East Coast at usually around 40,000 miles, but getting seats (especially with good routings) can be challenging. This is a plausible alternative for frequent flyers.
Just booked it for a mini-vaca mileagerun.
$700 and change for two tickets from IAD with the use of some expiring vouchers i had.
Awesome
You’re the best, Gary! Thanks!
Just came back from my first RTW adventure and have been itching to book my next trip. My birthday’s during Labor Day weekend so 4 days in Maui sounds perfect… booked SFO-OGG r/t for $720 all-in for 2!
Gary, you are a good man for posting this info. Thanks to you, I was able to get a $195 OGG RT(after applying a $250 cert).
How do you find out about these sales? Do you use Expert Flyer or Fare Compare and have alerts set up?