Using Hawaiian Airlines miles/credit card

[LCC]

Been a lurker for a month or two- this is my first post.

My husband and I are taking my 3 year old to Aulani in December and had been researching flight prices and found we weren't really going to get anything lower than about $800 per ticket (LAX departure). We asked a friend who flies to HNL every December and she confirmed that price.

So we decided to both apply for the Barclay Hawaiian Airlines credit card. We were both approved and spent $1000 on each card (really just bills, grocecies, gas and immediately paid off at statement) to get the extra 35,000 miles for each card.

The card comes with a one time 50% off a companion ticket discount. So I used that for me and the kid. And then a separate transaction to buy husband's ticket with points. Hawaiian airlines lets you gift your points so he "gifted" his to me and I bought his tickets and had enough to get comfort seating.

So...a little bit of finagling and time invested watching the cards for spending and gifting the points, but even for the 50% discount the $89 annual fee was worth it to me!

Just passing on my experience because I think I read about this potential tip here!

 

[sasha]

First of all,

I totally agree with you 100%!!! Our family of 5 will be making our first trip to Aulani in October. After researching flights for months beforehand, I found that the cheapest would be about $3400+ for our family flying out of LAX.

Days before we were going to book our flights I got a HA Barclay card application in the mail offering 50,000 miles after the first $1,000 that was spent. Since we had the money in the bank, we used the card to purchase our tickets and paid it off immediately.

Combining the miles with the 50% off companion discount, we ended up getting our tickets for $1700 for the 5 of us (half of what we were originally going to spend). It's like we got 2 free tickets. Totally worth it IMO.

Now we're putting our room on the card and paying it off immediately for the extra HA points.

 

[alohamom]

NICE! I wish Canadians could get the Hawaiian Airlines card, I would have one in a heartbeat. Excellent points strategy LCC and sasha

 

[twodogs]

Do you find that you can actually use the HA miles? We are in Dallas, and trying to use American Airlines miles is an absolute joke. And if you want business class, that's even more of a joke. We couldn't even get one coach ticket for a nonstop flight to any destination in Hawaii (HNL, Kawaii,, Kona, Maui Etc), at over 6 months out, and our dates were flexible (late May). Europe is even worse, booking business class at 364 days out for any nonstop. Ok I'll stop my rant. Just would not want to get a bunch of HA miles and then not be able to use them. I've never looked into it, so I'm very interested in how it went for you.

 

[twodogs]

Adding that you CAN use at least double the "standard" miles and go wherever. So let me correct that, if I want to spend double or more miles, I can use them on AA. But the "standard" miles tickets are never available.

 

[ihearthawaii]

My husband and I have had the Hawaiian Card for years, we've accumulated enough points for 11 free tickets in the last 8 years. The annual fee used to be $50 but it's gone up to $89 since Barclay took over for BofA. It's still totally worth it since we go often. I like that we can share miles and I've never had an issue redeeming my points.

 

[northshoremama]

this is a bit off topic...but DH and i have alaska airlines credit card through bank of america. they offer 1 $99RT companion fare per year and the annual fee is $75. so for our trip back home for our family of 5 in december came out to be about $600RT per person after dividing the total amount by 5. it was $1500 for 2 of us (one full fare, one $99)....so $1500 x 2 = $3000 for 4 of us, then $12 to use miles for the 5th person...$3012/5 = ~$600RT per person.

the only thing about alaska airlines from seattle is that they are 737-800 planes...so 3 seats on one side, aisle, then another 3 seats on the other side. i know hawaiian airlines has larger, more comfortable planes (and maybe that's why their airfare is a bit more expensive).

we havent' flown Hawaiian airlines in years...only because alaska airlines makes it more affordable for us especially with the annual $99RT companion fare

 

[LCC]

Adding that you CAN use at least double the "standard" miles and go wherever. So let me correct that, if I want to spend double or more miles, I can use them on AA. But the "standard" miles tickets are never available.

I only found one date (a Saturday) in all of December that seemed to be a blackout (even though they say no blackouts). All the other dates and months I looked up seemed to be fine for using points. Not sure if I encountered a glitch or what. But seemed like you could get a flight easily with points.

 

[chglass]

We are headed to Aulani at the end of June using miles. We burned United miles to get four first class tickets from DC to LAX (spending four days at disneyland), then four first class tickets to HNL. Coming back, we are doing American Airlines first class from HNL to DFW to DC. All of them were at the saver level. We basically built our trip around when the flights were available. We also booked as soon as the booking window opened, 330 days or so.

 

[@jenncardenas]

First of all,

I totally agree with you 100%!!! Our family of 5 will be making our first trip to Aulani in October. After researching flights for months beforehand, I found that the cheapest would be about $3400+ for our family flying out of LAX.

Days before we were going to book our flights I got a HA Barclay card application in the mail offering 50,000 miles after the first $1,000 that was spent. Since we had the money in the bank, we used the card to purchase our tickets and paid it off immediately.

Combining the miles with the 50% off companion discount, we ended up getting our tickets for $1700 for the 5 of us (half of what we were originally going to spend). It's like we got 2 free tickets. Totally worth it IMO.

Now we're putting our room on the card and paying it off immediately for the extra HA points.

We applied for the card after our first trip but are using to build up miles for our next trip to Aulani now to save our DVC points... Lol