Best credit card/ tips for Hawaii flights?

[justme0729]

Can anyone recommend a good credit card that gives points for flights to Hawaii or general tips for how to get good pricing even during peak times? We can fly out of Ohare in Chicago or Milwaukee, WI. Hawaiian airlines doesn’t fly out of Chicago or Milwaukee.

 

[MillauFr]

You can get the Alaska Airline credit card for $75 per year. You get free bags and a companion fare. You buy one ticket and you get the second for $145 RT to Hawaii. You can get decent flights between Chicago and Honolulu, transferring in Seattle, Portland, or San Fran.

 

[justme0729]

You can get the Alaska Airline credit card for $75 per year. You get free bags and a companion fare. You buy one ticket and you get the second for $145 RT to Hawaii. You can get decent flights between Chicago and Honolulu, transferring in Seattle, Portland, or San Fran.

That would be awesome! When I look though, Alaska flights would take at least 12 hours with many taking 14-25 hours with layovers. At that point, the money saved is time lost of vacation I think.

 

[MillauFr]

Yes I would only do it if I was saving hundreds of dollars and I was on one of the flights where you had a 1 - 2 hour layover. Otherwise I would just fly United non-stop. Flying Alaska might also make sense if you were flying to the Big Island or Kauai since there are no non-stop flights from Chicago.

 

[MomToOne]

Fly mid week. It's WAY cheaper. Usually Wednesdays are the cheapest day, but also check Tuesday and Thursday because they sometimes pop up as cheaper.

Also check multiple airports if you can. I live in Northern California - Alaska Air is dirt cheap if I fly out of Oakland some mid-week days, but fares jump to go out of Sacramento, San Jose or San Francisco. Hawaiian typically has better prices out of those. Don't dismiss Hawaiian because they don't fly out of your city - United and Hawaiian codeshare, so you could fly United to a hub (like SFO), then switch to a Hawaiian flight.

I have the Alaska credit card because I can combine the cheap Oakland fares with the companion pass. I just bought tickets for next June for DD and I to Honolulu - cost was $660 round trip for both of us using the pass (the companion fare cost is officially $99 plus taxes/fees - those taxes/fees can vary based on the airports you use. Out of Oakland, on a non-stop flight, the total companion fare came to $145 but had I flown out of Sacramento, which requires a connection, it would have been a bit more.)

Southwest is also about to start service to Hawaii out of several Northern CA cities - rumor has it they will announce the start date of the flights next week. That is expected to bring more competition and lower fares in general, but it might take some time for that all to sort out.

 

[Wild4Walt]

MomToOne has great advise. I'd also check American and United - both offer credit cards and sometimes have Open A Card and Get X Points. United has nonstop flights but I'm not 100% sure if American does anymore out of Chicago.

You also have options of transferring in San Francisco, LA, Dallas with American.

 

[Halloweenqueen]

The Alaska airlines card is terrific.

I also would suggest a Chase card with ultimate rewards. You can transfer your points to Avios/British Airways and use those miles to buy Alaska flights. That way it only costs $25,000 miles ROUND trip! You will need to find a way to the west coast. May I suggest a quick trip to Disneyland?

 

[platamama]

The last time I did a nonstop between Hawaii and DEN on United, I was miserably uncomfortable. I would much rather do a layover on the west coast to get out and stretch my legs and move around.

American and United are good choices from ORD, and right now AA has some good offers on credit cards for miles. One should wait for a United cc offer of 50K or better before applying for that card, I've seen offers of up to 70K on it.

Southwest is going to start flying to Hawaii too - more details on that are supposed to be released this month. And you can qualify for a companion pass on SW which means someone can fly with you for the $5.60 in fees each direction, good for up to two years. I don't know how much fares will be, but I expect them to be competitive. Southwest flies out of Midway instead of ORD in your area. The schedule is supposed to be released on 8/30 for the period thru 4/5/2019. Southwest released a new credit card offer recently and it looks intriguing...though if you want to get a companion pass on Southwest you would want to wait til Q4 to apply for the card ( and not complete the spend requirements until 2019) in order to get the most usage out of a companion pass. That's because you can get the CP when you earn 110,000 qualifying points in a calendar year -- you'd want the points to post at the beginning of 2019 so that you have the rest of the year to earn the other qualifying points (which could be done with a SW business credit card signup bonus).

I'm a huge fan of Southwest's point system, if there's a seat available, you can buy it with points if you have enough. It doesn't depend on if there are award seats available like capacity controlled awards with American and United. If you cancel or change on Southwest, those points go back into your account and there's no penalty fee associated with canceling or changing. And two free checked bags.

As mentioned before, the Chase Ultimate Rewards system is great too, and those points are transferrable to United and Southwest. But they don't work to get you a companion pass.

If you have further interest, we are helpful over in the I Love Credit Cards thread.

 

[MEM]

The last time I did a nonstop between Hawaii and DEN on United, I was miserably uncomfortable. I would much rather do a layover on the west coast to get out and stretch my legs and move around.

American and United are good choices from ORD, and right now AA has some good offers on credit cards for miles. One should wait for a United cc offer of 50K or better before applying for that card, I've seen offers of up to 70K on it.

Southwest is going to start flying to Hawaii too - more details on that are supposed to be released this month. And you can qualify for a companion pass on SW which means someone can fly with you for the $5.60 in fees each direction, good for up to two years. I don't know how much fares will be, but I expect them to be competitive. Southwest flies out of Midway instead of ORD in your area. The schedule is supposed to be released on 8/30 for the period thru 4/5/2019. Southwest released a new credit card offer recently and it looks intriguing...though if you want to get a companion pass on Southwest you would want to wait til Q4 to apply for the card ( and not complete the spend requirements until 2019) in order to get the most usage out of a companion pass. That's because you can get the CP when you earn 110,000 qualifying points in a calendar year -- you'd want the points to post at the beginning of 2019 so that you have the rest of the year to earn the other qualifying points (which could be done with a SW business credit card signup bonus).

I'm a huge fan of Southwest's point system, if there's a seat available, you can buy it with points if you have enough. It doesn't depend on if there are award seats available like capacity controlled awards with American and United. If you cancel or change on Southwest, those points go back into your account and there's no penalty fee associated with canceling or changing. And two free checked bags.

As mentioned before, the Chase Ultimate Rewards system is great too, and those points are transferrable to United and Southwest. But they don't work to get you a companion pass.

If you have further interest, we are helpful over in the I Love Credit Cards thread.

When we flew from BOS to HON two years ago we flew Alaska Air to Seattle (using miles earned by signing up plus companion fares for DS and DD) - and then stayed in a nice little hotel a few miles from SEA-TAC overnight. My husband could not tolerate such a long flight without resting for a day - nor could I. The shuttle took about 10 minutes to get to the airport.

 

[TnTWalter]

We used the Alaska Airlines. I think right now if you get a cc the companion fee is waived. So you pay the annual fee for cc [$75] whatever your flight is [Chicago to islands is $500-$1k each depending timing]. and then pay tax on companion. We flew out of Chicago using Alaska [layover in Seattle]. It was fine. Good luck. Hawaii is amazing.

 

[Narnia_girl]

When we flew from BOS to HON two years ago we flew Alaska Air to Seattle (using miles earned by signing up plus companion fares for DS and DD) - and then stayed in a nice little hotel a few miles from SEA-TAC overnight. My husband could not tolerate such a long flight without resting for a day - nor could I. The shuttle took about 10 minutes to get to the airport.

Did you do a layover stay on the way home also?

 

[disneymagicgirl]

When we flew from BOS to HON two years ago we flew Alaska Air to Seattle (using miles earned by signing up plus companion fares for DS and DD) - and then stayed in a nice little hotel a few miles from SEA-TAC overnight. My husband could not tolerate such a long flight without resting for a day - nor could I. The shuttle took about 10 minutes to get to the airport.

This is my plan when we go too...late 2019 or spring 2020. We will have a 3 or 4 year old along for the ride, so an overnight stay between the flights is what we need for sure!

 

[hsmamato2]

check out the credit cards thread....so many experts there!!! I personally used British airways avios (from a cc signup bonus) on American Airlines to get free tickets from LAX- Maui-

 

[Woth2982]

The last time I did a nonstop between Hawaii and DEN on United, I was miserably uncomfortable. I would much rather do a layover on the west coast to get out and stretch my legs and move around.

American and United are good choices from ORD, and right now AA has some good offers on credit cards for miles. One should wait for a United cc offer of 50K or better before applying for that card, I've seen offers of up to 70K on it.

Southwest is going to start flying to Hawaii too - more details on that are supposed to be released this month. And you can qualify for a companion pass on SW which means someone can fly with you for the $5.60 in fees each direction, good for up to two years. I don't know how much fares will be, but I expect them to be competitive. Southwest flies out of Midway instead of ORD in your area. The schedule is supposed to be released on 8/30 for the period thru 4/5/2019. Southwest released a new credit card offer recently and it looks intriguing...though if you want to get a companion pass on Southwest you would want to wait til Q4 to apply for the card ( and not complete the spend requirements until 2019) in order to get the most usage out of a companion pass. That's because you can get the CP when you earn 110,000 qualifying points in a calendar year -- you'd want the points to post at the beginning of 2019 so that you have the rest of the year to earn the other qualifying points (which could be done with a SW business credit card signup bonus).

I'm a huge fan of Southwest's point system, if there's a seat available, you can buy it with points if you have enough. It doesn't depend on if there are award seats available like capacity controlled awards with American and United. If you cancel or change on Southwest, those points go back into your account and there's no penalty fee associated with canceling or changing. And two free checked bags.

As mentioned before, the Chase Ultimate Rewards system is great too, and those points are transferrable to United and Southwest. But they don't work to get you a companion pass.

If you have further interest, we are helpful over in the I Love Credit Cards thread.

My dad is about to put my entire wedding on his SW card for this reason! He and my mom are going to Hawaii next September for their 40th anniversary!

 

[adamak]

Chase UR points. Transfer and redeem from BA.
https://thepointsguy.com/2016/10/chase-sapphire-reserve-destination-hawaii/

 

[taaren]

Southwest will be going to Hawaii pretty soon, so those might be good miles to collect if you are planning on going often. I have the Alaska Signature card because I go to Maui once a year at peak/holiday times to be with family, but the other thing I would recommend is checking out Beat of Hawaii on FB, they tend to keep an eye on sales and post when there are good ones. When I'm thinking about taking the kids home for an extra trip, its usually because Beat alerted me to a really great deal.