Hawaiian miles have been of heightened interest to those in this hobby since the Hawaiian Airlines merger with Alaska. While we don’t have a date on when the loyalty programs will merge, i.e. Hawaiian miles will likely all be forced to convert to Alaska miles, many are expecting that to happen sometime this summer. Hawaiian miles have never been viewed as particularly useful, but Alaska miles on the other hand are very useful. In the meantime, there are still several opportunities to both earn and position Hawaiian miles today for maximum benefit later this year.
On the earning side there are still two main options open. Amex points still transfer 1:1 to Hawaiian and there are still three (!!) different Hawaiian credit card products available from Barclays. The Hawaiian Airlines World Elite Mastercard (70k points) and Business Mastercard (50k points) both show up on the Barclays credit card main page but there is also an offer from Bank of Hawaii that is also offered through Barclays that, while very similar and also 70k miles sign-up bonus, is technically a different product. In my personal experience, it is possible to get approved for the Bank of Hawaii version even if you already have the regular personal card, by calling Barclays reconsideration right after applying.
Why do these cards matter for converting Hawaiian miles to Alaska miles?
If our goal is to maximize our future Alaska miles, it is helpful to consolidate miles within a family to one person. Since I tend to do most award booking from our family out of my accounts, this is helpful. You cannot merge Alaska miles between accounts but you can merge Hawaiian miles and then transfer to Alaska.
Normally, there is a $25 service fee plus 1 cent per mile, which is a terrible value. However, sharing miles is free when the recipient is a primary credit card holder. The only catch is that you can only receive miles 10 times per year. If for example your spouse has (or soon gets) one of the Hawaiian credit cards and had Amex points you would like to ultimately move to Alaska, it would be better to have them first transfer their Amex points into their Hawaiian account, wait for the sign-up bonus to post on the card, and then initiate the transfer.
How to make the transfer
Now that we have covered why you may want to consolidate Hawaiian miles and how to earn them in the short term, let’s walk through the steps to combine them.
First, go to hawaiianairlines.com and log in to the account of the member who will be giving the miles. Click on your name in the gray box in the upper right, then “My Account” in the drop down.
Next, scroll down on the menus along the left side to the HawaiianMiles section and click on “Share Miles”. This can be a little confusing as it seems similar to “Gift” or “Donate”.
The next screen is pretty simple; you just need to put in the last name and HawaiianMiles number of the person to receive the miles and enter the amount you want to transfer, then click continue.
The final step is to review the transaction, making sure the recipient info is correct as is the number of miles you wish to transfer. If that looks good, click the “Transfer Miles Now” button in the bottom right. As you can see, there is no cost to transfer these miles due to holding the Hawaiian credit card.
TL;DR: With the merger between Hawaiian and Alaska Airlines, there is a short-term opportunity to earn valuable Alaska miles by first earning Hawaiian miles and then transferring them to Alaska. While you can’t combine miles across Alaska accounts, you can do it for free with Hawaiian miles as long as you are a credit card holder. In this post we walk through how to quickly consolidate Hawaiian miles between accounts in order to maximize their usefulness once transferred to Alaska.
