Redeeming Miles To Hawaii In First Class

I was just researching this yesterday! Perfect timing. My conclusion was that AAdvantage miles seem to be a pretty poor value to Hawaii. The cash for a ticket wasn't as bad as I was expecting. Thanks for the insight!

I think it depends where you're departing the mainland. For anywhere mid-continent or east, I think it's worth it.

DFW-HNL is about 1000 miles closer than DFW-LHR
ORD-HNL is only 300 miles closer than ORD-LHR

And both of those flights are overnight so if I can get even an angle-flat, it's worth it to me. Plus, as some of us grow older (and wider) it's just not comfortable to sit in those narrow seats with no legroom for 7-9 hours.

And for me, if I'm going to Hawaii it's one of my big vacations for the year, one that I save my miles for so I'm definitely going to use them!

i redeemed AA miles to Hawaii in first because 4 economy seats weren't available on the dates I was able to travel. It wasn't EVA Air biz class but it got us there.

I would agree with Lea, value is a function of departure location. My wife and I are booked roundtrip CMH to KOA in mid-May at the first class saver level on AA at 67.5K miles each net (that is after the 10% rebate we receive from having the Citi AAdvantage cards). This was a better value than pricing first from here, or trying to stage to the left coast or right coast to secure some bargain fare in those markets. Also we were aiming for direct to KOA without the necessity to route through HLN. If we were aiming for HLN, I might look at some other proposition.

Great article - thanks Tiffany! I love how you always lay out all the options for all airlines in your posts 🙂

It's not true when you say all the products are recliners with a little aloha. The only way to fly to Hawaii is 60k Singapore on united with fully flat bed on the 767 from eWR.

Great article. I'd love a follow up about which carriers have the best first class products to Hawaii.

@ Jason -- With a few exceptions, they're all basically the same, to be honest: https://onemileatatime.com/why-arent-there-nicer-seats-to-hawaii/

@ Izzy -- I noted that there are a few routes with nicer planes. The problem is that availability at the saver level is nearly non-existent on those routes, unfortunately.

Admittedly I have not looked into this in a while, but my recollection was that using Avios on AA or Alaska from the West Coast was 12,500 one-way making it one of, if not the best, economy points value to Hawaii. Has this gone up? I see you are showing 50,000 Avios one-way.

Sorry, just noticed your post is for "First Class" redemptions - my mistake!

If you choose your flights carefully, you can find internationally configured 767's to HNL on Delta. LAX, ATL, and JFK I think. Don't know about the rest. My friend is there now and she had the standard lie-flat 767 configuration which was great for getting to Hawaii.

I think most people who redeem miles to Hawaii are leisure travelers who've had a credit card with an airline for years for whatever reason but who don't actually know what they're doing. Not all, but MOST. I can tell you I know people who would see how many AA miles it takes and just say "cool." Then again, someone just told me that it takes at least $20k to go to Europe "the right way," so there are plenty of people out there who just don't know how this stuff works.*

*And yes, I'm picturing Bernice from the Esurance ad.

Why isn't Asiana's award chart mentioned? 55,000 miles roundtrip in business to Hawaii is the cheapest Star Alliance option as far as I'm aware.

Non peak time YVR-HNL with stopover at LAX only costs &1000 USD, only marginally more expensive than coach

I live in Denver, so I used 60,000 krisflyer miles to book two one-ways direct from HNL. However, my trip just got postponed. Hopefully the availability is there when I begin to search again.

This is great info Tiffany! Do you have an update to this information since I am guessing things have changed a bit from 2015?

@ Ginger Cravens -- Thanks! Things haven't changed much, honestly. There still aren't any reliable options as far as award space is concerned, and most of the planes are pretty old.

Just back from Hawaii and found on a one way OGG to EWR points ticket United would not put me on any upgrade list. The premium economy only had 8 of 22 seats filled and all 45 Polaris seats. The premium economy was just like domestic first as they got dinner and breakfast on China. That would have been an acceptable upgrade. Next time I will pay for coach and get this upgrade.