American Airlines has long partnered with Hawaiian Airlines. Hawaiian has now been acquired by American’s ‘West Coast Alliance’ and oneworld partner Alaska Airlines. And so a change has been made to using American AAdvantage miles on Hawaiian Airlines: you can now redeem AAdvantage miles to fly to Hawaii!.
- In September 2015, American stopped allowing AAdvantage members to redeem miles between Hawaii and the mainland U.S..
- Airlines frequently partnered with Hawaiian for their intra-Hawaii flights, and to some extent their route network beyond Hawaii. However awards to Hawaii are popular and partner redemptions there are expensive.
- Hawaiian is on its way towards being integrated into Alaska Airlines. They will achieve a single operating certificate, at which point the carrier will be part of oneworld. Alaska will retain a separate brand identity for Hawaii flights, but it will be one airline. We’re going to get these redemptions eventually, anyway – likely 2026. It’s good to see it now!
Hawaiian award availability, especially from the West Coast (and Austin, while it lasts), is better than award availability to Hawaii on American or Alaska. I do expect Alaska’s revenue management to change this over time, as well as to better sell these flights.
You can use Honolulu as a one-stop gateway across the Pacific as well. Hawaiian currently flies to,
- Auckland and Sydney
- Fukuoka, Tokyo Haneda and Narita, and Osaka in Japan
- Seoul
- Papeete, Pago Pago, and Raratonga
One thing American needs to do is fix mileage-earning on Hawaiian Airlines. I’ve heard from several readers who are affected by Alaska and Hawaii shifting their flying between the two airlines.
American AAdvantage members were encouraged to travel on Alaska Airlines, because that earned both miles and status credit in the AAdvantage program. However, schedules shifting such that Hawaiian will now operate a planned flight means this changes.
There are people purchasing tickets for a flight on Alaska, who will learn that the flight is going to be a Hawaiian flight. This is going to happen more and more prior to a single operating certificate on the two carriers. But they only bought the ticket because it was going to earn them credit with American.
Unfortunately, Hawaiian Airlines flights with a Hawaiian flight number do not earn Loyalty Points (credit towards AAdvantage elite status). That’s a gap which should be addressed.
Nonetheless, it’s great news today that there’s more mileage-earning and much more flexibility with mileage redemption on Hawaiian Airlines now than there’s been in the last nine years.