Whether you want to book a business class seat to Europe for as low as 45,000 miles or elsewhere, Alaska Airlines miles could be the most valuable on the planet. So go figure, they're far harder to earn than the likes of Delta or United miles: There's no way to transfer points from the major banks like Amex, Chase, or Capital One to Alaska … at least not directly.
But Hawaiian Airlines is, in fact, an Amex transfer partner. And Alaska's merger with Hawaiian opened up a pathway to send your Amex points to Hawaiian and then kick them over to Alaska afterward. That ability is now live!
If you've got points from cards like the *amex gold* or *amex platinum*, you're set. This is a golden opportunity, arguably the best way to easily get ultra-valuable Alaska miles … but it may not last long.
We wouldn't be surprised to see American Express cut the option to transfer points to Hawaiian in the not-too-distant future. That's exactly what Bilt Rewards did last month – without a word of warning, to boot – citing the looming merger.
Now that the merger is official, the days of transferring Amex points to Hawaiian could be numbered. So it's worth taking advantage of while you can.
That means you could transfer 45,000 Amex points to Hawaiian, kick them over to Alaska eventually, and book this flight to Paris-Charles de Gaulle (CDG) in Aer Lingus business class.
Or transfer 75,000 Membership Rewards points and book the fancy Starlux business class seats between the U.S. and Taipei (TPE). Alaska miles are one of the only ways to book these luxe seats to Southeast Asia right now.
Read next: How to Find & Book the Best Alaska Airlines Miles Deals
The one hitch with these transfers is that you get hit with a pesky fee when transferring Amex points to Hawaiian – or any other U.S. airline, for that matter. Amex tacks on a small fee of .06 cents per point, up to a maximum of $99. This means a transfer of 75,000 Membership Rewards points would cost you $45.
If you ask us, that's a small price to pay to easily earn Alaska miles.
Should you transfer your entire balance of Amex Membership Rewards points to Hawaiian right now? No – we still wouldn't recommend speculatively transferring a ton of points to Hawaiian. You'd be wise to scope out your options beforehand and leave yourself plenty of points in your Amex account.
But you shouldn't have a hard time finding a rock-solid way to redeem those points through Alaska once that comes online. We could go on and on about why we love Alaska miles so much – and why you should, too:
- While some of its best sweet spots have taken a hit under a new award chart, Alaska often charges far fewer miles than many other airline programs
- You'll rarely pay more than $20 or so in taxes and fees
- You can book flights with more than two dozen partner carriers – and not just fellow Oneworld airlines but some unusual options like Starlux, Condor, Air Tahiti Nui, and LATAM
- You can add a free stopover to any award ticket, squeezing in two destinations for the price of one. And yes, that includes even one-way award tickets
Alaska miles are so valuable, we're even giving the Hawaiian Airlines® World Elite Mastercard® a hard look for the first time … ever. With the current publicly available welcome bonus offer, you can earn 70,000 miles after spending $2,000 within 90 days. You could earn those miles even faster by applying through this link (and entering any six-digit promo code): Make a single purchase – whether it's a pack of gum, cup of coffee, or something else – and pay the card's $99 annual fee, and you'll earn the same 70,000-mile signup bonus.
That bonus of 70,000 miles might not do much with Hawaiian itself. But by sending those miles over to your Alaska account, they'll go a long way.
Get this: A handful of Thrifty Traveler team members applied for this card within hours of the merger clearing. That oughta tell you something.
Bottom Line
If you've got some Amex points and a good way to redeem some Alaska miles (trust me: you do), this is a golden opportunity.
Alaska miles are both incredibly valuable and incredibly hard to earn. This chance to transfer Amex points to Hawaiian and then over to Alaska is too good to pass up.
But consider yourself warned: Odds are, this is a limited-time opportunity. You'd be wise to make a plan to take advantage while this pathway to earn Alaska miles still exists … because it might not last long.
How do I find a promo code for the MasterCard?
You can use any six digit number and it should work!
Any 6-digit number does NOT work
That has changed from when I posted the original comment. Do a google search for a code. They are floating around on Reddit.
The reason, Alaska Miles are hard to earn, is they are basically a Regional Carrier, servicing the NW on short routes, plus SF, LA, SD and PHX, as well as those in the PNW having the ability to choose for Hawaii, if 737 were desirable! What is the current relationship with American and Alaska, as far as Miles etc., and would that open another door, once the decision is made to merge the Programs? I’m still circumspect as to DOT Buttigieg approving this merger, while nullifying Jet Blue-Spirit (also in a death spiral), while previously ruling against Jet-Blue and American. Hawaii, our 50th State, is an Island State, that is dependent on transportation for everything from food, bricks, wood, steel to tourism, any Economic issues that hit the mainland or PNW can cause Alaska to reduce service, which makes in Incumbant on other Long Distance Carriers to connect the dots. Alaska gains larger Aircraft, not compatible with their Fleet and Team, that are most likely going to be used to expand their western State, to possibly NY, Atlanta, East Coast (Boston, NYC already having Hawaiian Non-Stops and possibly Orlando again) locations. Time will tell!
Actually AS job is to make money, not serve the state of Hawaii’s economy and lose money which is what HA did 15 of the last 16 quarters. All of these losses with a load factor of 83%. AS will not touch the intra-island routes or the few HA-US flights the DOT pointed out for competitive reasons (SEA, PDX, SJC, SAN, SFO).
Expect AS not to renew the leases of the A330s or renew and convert to freight and operate for Amazon Prime. HA already does that.
BOS and JFK will lose out to competition from DL. They would be crazy to enter ATL. AS already struggles there dropping SEA-ATL from 4 daily to 2x in January. Orlando? Nah. Maybe they make a deal with AA and drop AUS in favor of DFW while AA takes over at PHX to not compete on hub-to-hum routes.
Once the OneWorld integration is complete, HA metal will stop flying to HNL-Australia in favor or QF codeshare. AS will apply to transfer the HND-HNL rights to HND-SEA and run it on HA 787’s and let the JL codeshare cover HND-HNL. Perhaps SEA to other Asian destinations on HA metal. Maybe SEA-LHR if they can get a slot from a partner airline. The HNL international map will be a shell of it’s current self in 3-5 years. Most HA 787’s touch SEA every day from somewhere in a few years. They will keep a few on US-HNL (LAX, LAS, SFO) and upcharge the heck out of the front cabin on those.
I currently carry the Delta AMEX Platinum and Chase Preferred. Would it be smart to open up a Hawaiian Airlines CC and transfer all the welcome points to Alaskan with the expectation to utilize Aer Lingus for 2 Business Class seats in a year and a half for a planned family trip? I doubt there would be a better deal for specific dates to travel when the time comes.
I dont think you can transfer from hawaian to alaska yet….
This article is clearly misleading. The 75K miles in business class from SFO to TPE simply cannot be found on any date at all. It is actually 175K miles on all of the dates we have tested.
It is difficult to find but those 75k redemptions do, in fact, exist.
Kyle,
I think you mistakenly added the AA Red credit card blurb for the Hawaiian Air cc:
“Make a single purchase – whether it’s a pack of gum, cup of coffee, or something else – and pay the card’s $99 annual fee, and you’ll earn the same 70,000-mile signup bonus”
Hey Rob, the Hawaiian card has the exact offer if you use that link in the story above. It will require you to enter in a 6 digit promo code, but you should be able to enter any 6 digit number and it will work.
Hi Kyle, A few things please. (1) I am trying to book from NYC to Madrid in May 2025 (but then, for the sake of your example also tried CDG). Yes, MSP is not the same as NYC — but I live in NYC. I was shocked to see that they wanted 45,000 miles but also over $1,000 in fuel surcharges. How do we avoid the fuel surcharges (are they only out of the East Coast)? And how do manipulate the booking page to indicate that you prefer mixed-cabin seating?
(2) Truth be told, I have slowly accumulated over 170,000 Alaska miles since Marriott took over Sheraton (there was a vacation package which no longer exists that got me 120,000 Alaska miles to which I added an Alaskan credit card subscription offer) — but for all the times I have logged in to check value with Alaska versus the other 10 programs in which I have miles, they have consistently fallen flat on their face in terms of redemption value. I have yet to redeem a single mile on Alaskan in the 5+ years I have had them. I keep telling myself I am saving them for a trans-Pacific first class experience but I haven’t had any reason to scope that out yet — so when I say “flat on their face” I am referring to domestic tickets (when compared to American Airlines — always lower) and trans-Atlantic tickets (and I go to Europe frequently — 5 times this year already for example — and 4 of the trips were using miles).
Thanks,
G
I’ve been an Alaska Airlines MileagePlan member for decades. Currently 75K. Despite that — and I am open to admitting that I may be missing an important hack about how to properly use the site — I have never been able to use my hundreds and hundreds of thousands of MileagePlan miles for anything of particular value, other than Alaska Airlines trips. I dreamed of booking what Mr. Potter (in his article above) references about flying “all the way to Australia in a lie-flat seat for just 10,000 miles more” (Wow! Exactly how would one do that!!!??? Yowza!) But Every. Single. Time. I went to look (and believe me, I looked and looked), Alaska’s airline never, ever — EVER — offered anything beyond economy on Qantas (Alaska’s partner to Australia). Cathay was a possibility if flown via Hong Kong, but, there, too, I never found anything other than lower class availability. I requested customer service support, but they also were unable to find any seating, despite looking months into the future. It simply doesn’t exist! Again, I am open to maybe not knowing the hack for using my abundant Alaska MileagePlan miles. But, I sure wish I hadn’t found it so difficult. With Hawaiian, on the other hand, you havea much more open book, for travel to the Down Under destinations. I can actually use miles (AMEX-transferred or otherwise) to go to Sydney or Auckland, and there is no hidden magic required. And no embarrassment for not knowing the secret handshake seemingly needed for using the mileage redemptions to **actually** travel to overseas destinations. Please don’t interpret this as a put down of Alaska . . . the people working there are mostly great, and the airline is one of the better run outfits. But why is the mileage redemption system, touted as so sensational, so challenging to actually reap the rewards for? I want to believe! I really do!