It’s Gone: Turn Your Amex Points into Alaska Miles ASAP!

Editor's note: American Express pulled the option to transfer points to Hawaiian Airlines mid-morning on Monday.

One of the best points opportunities of the year was supposed to be dead on Monday morning, but it turns out travelers may have one last chance to turn their Amex Membership Rewards points into ultra-valuable Alaska Mileage Plan miles.

Alaska's merger with Hawaiian last year created one of the best opportunities of all time for points and miles aficionados: It made Alaska miles an unofficial Amex transfer partner, as you could send Amex points to Hawaiian, then kick them over to Alaska. But American Express announced that it would drop Hawaiian as a transfer partner as of today, June 30.

That means this workaround should be gone for good … but either the wording is off or someone forgot to pull the plug, because we've confirmed transfers to Hawaiian are still going through as of Monday! Our team tested it repeatedly Monday morning and each transfer from Amex to Hawaiian went through without a hitch.

American Express did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the discrepancy. Regardless, consider this an unexpected last chance to turn your points from cards like the *amex gold* or *amex platinum* into ultra-valuable Alaska miles. 
 

Here's how.

How to Transfer Hawaiian Miles to Alaska

First things first, just go to the Alaska and Hawaiian points transfer landing page. 

The next part is important: Make sure you select the frequent flyer program to which you want to transfer miles. Since we want to convert Hawaiian miles into Alaska miles, start by selecting Mileage Plan.

You will be prompted to log in with your Alaska credentials, after which you'll see this screen. From here, you can move the slider to transfer as many of your current Hawaiian miles over to Alaska as you want. You must transfer at least 50 miles – and in increments of 50 miles, too.

Of course, this works in reverse: You can transfer miles from Alaska over to Hawaiian, too.

After clicking continue, you'll be asked to confirm your transfer. 

After clicking “Transfer,” you should get a confirmation that your miles are processing – though several members of the Thrifty Traveler team got a few errors before transfers went through correctly. 

If it works, check your Alaska account: Your miles should be instantly available.

Of course, you'll need to first transfer your Amex points over to Hawaiian. That part's easier: Read our full guide to transferring Amex points.

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? Not necessarily – at least not without a plan for how you'd use them. You'd be wise to scope out your options beforehand and be sure to leave yourself plenty of Amex points for future deals.

Luckily, there are plenty of options. 

Some Ways to Redeem Alaska Miles

You could transfer 45,000 Amex points to Hawaiian, kick them over to Alaska, and book this flight to Paris-Charles de Gaulle (CDG) in Aer Lingus business class.

Or transfer 75,000 Membership Rewards points to book Starlux's fancy 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.

Read next: How to Find & Book the Best Alaska Airlines Miles Deals 

Honestly,  you shouldn't have a hard time finding a rock-solid way to redeem those points through Alaska. 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 other airline programs flying the same route
• You'll rarely pay more than $20 or so in taxes and fees
• Alaska allows free cancellations on award tickets, aside from the $12.50 partner booking fee, which is non-refundable
• 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® (for full disclosure, this is not an affiliate link) a hard look for the first time … ever. With the current publicly available welcome bonus offer, you can earn 60,000 miles after spending $2,000 within 90 days. 

That bonus of 60,000 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 a stash of Amex points and a good way to redeem Alaska miles (and trust us, there are many), this is your last, last chance.

By the way Amex worded things, transfers to Hawaiian were supposed to be dead by now. But those transfers are still going through Monday morning, giving you a final opportunity to turn your Amex points into Alaska miles.