Hawaiian’s online shopping mall has been the only way I know of to consistently earn bonus miles for Amazon purchases. While it was only one extra mile per dollar, they can add up if you make a lot of purchases through Amazon anyway. And the fact that you can transfer those points at a 1:2 ratio to Hilton helps as well, for those not interested in building up Hawaiian miles.
Well, they’ve changed the earnings structure as of today, with the most epic way of delivering bad news ever:
“With this enhancement you will no longer earn miles on purchases in all categories?” Awesome!
Instead you earn bonus miles in select, rotating categories. Right now that includes the following:
Kudos to Hawaiian on this huge devaluation enhancement!
(Tip of the hat to Scott)
@Scott Thanks for "enhancing" my Amazon shopping. I've been using the HA portal to get a mere 2 HHonors points per dollar of spend. Your gift card method will be a bit more work, but get me 6 points per dollar.
In Hawaiian's sense of the word, I've just "enhanced" all of my shopping thru Hawaiian's portal to zero. :D
Don't forget you can earn Hawaiian miles on Delta and JetBlue flights to top off those orphan accounts. You get Hawaiian credit of one mile per mile flown on JB vs. the 6 points per dollar spent that you get on JB itself. So it can be a much better deal to credit your cheap JB flights to Hawaiian.
@Kevin Keep those miles and "enhance" your total with Hawaiian miles from B of A Hawaiian Airlines, and Bank of Hawaii {FIA}, credit card bonuses. One of each and you've got 70K more miles. Rinse and repeat, and Bob's Your Uncle :D
This is sad for me. I do a lot of shopping on Amazon, and I always used the Hawaiian referral link. My logic was that at some point, I'd have enough points to fly US to Australia via HNL or something like that. I have about 10K Hawaiian miles right now. Now that there is no more Amazon, I think I'll probably just transfer all of my Hawaiian miles to my wife's Hilton account and close it up.
To me, this kind of "enhancement" is the same kind of enhancement that a root canal does to a bad tooth. At least at the end of the root canal, you alleviate some of the pain. In this case, I'm sure some of the pain was alleviated for the mall provider or HA. Very dissapointing. Here's hoping the bonus category is with you someday soon!
Ugh, why do I have the feeling this 74 mile/$ special you tipped us off to won't post till the last guy gets "laid"?
JRL
My HA account will now rest in peace. Now there's no need to see if it's actually worth flying them again.
Hawaiian mall is the only portal remaining with miles/cash back for my favorite office supply vendor:
www.ibuyofficesupply.com
2.5 miles per $1
Well, I guess I have no more use for my HA account.
Interesting..I heard about this on Flyertalk but since I use the Shopping Mall bar I downloaded I would not have realized this on my own. I got NO notification from Hawaiian. Even just now I went to Amazon.com and clicked on the "earn now" button and it turned green and said I was earning 1 mile per $. Not sure if this will change tomorrow or not. I use Hawaiian miles because each year we...
Interesting..I heard about this on Flyertalk but since I use the Shopping Mall bar I downloaded I would not have realized this on my own. I got NO notification from Hawaiian. Even just now I went to Amazon.com and clicked on the "earn now" button and it turned green and said I was earning 1 mile per $. Not sure if this will change tomorrow or not. I use Hawaiian miles because each year we visit our daughter who is serving in the AF in Hawaii. We always fly her over to another island to give her a break. I was racking up miles for our June trip and had hoped to use them for her flight back and forth. For me this will decrease the amount of business I give to Amazon.
Thanks, but I'd rather just cash out what I have. Min. move is 5,000 and Hilton isn't even an option.
Scott, you can buy BestBuy GCs from PJ or Cardpool at a 5-6% discount, plus get another 2%+ cash back using TopCashBack (TCB can be YMMV). Then use the GCs in store at BB to buy kindle GCs which work just like amazon GCs. That's often better than buying from grocery stores. And you can still get cash back when using them, via ebates, or supporting your favorite page online when ebates doesn't offer CB...
Scott, you can buy BestBuy GCs from PJ or Cardpool at a 5-6% discount, plus get another 2%+ cash back using TopCashBack (TCB can be YMMV). Then use the GCs in store at BB to buy kindle GCs which work just like amazon GCs. That's often better than buying from grocery stores. And you can still get cash back when using them, via ebates, or supporting your favorite page online when ebates doesn't offer CB at amazon. You might also be able to get kindle GCs with your IB at office supply stores which would earn 5x.
Mileswhore- take a gander through the rest of the HA portal. They've got some random good deals I've been able to use over the past few months which got me from 3k to 23k for a HH transfer. Now I'm back to orphaned 3k.
Scott- I just started double dipping 2 months ago... Lost a good 18k HH over the past year by not getting GC's since even our TP comes from Amazon.
My best practice for Amazon purchases is to buy a gift card at a grocery store, office store or drug store with a category bonus mileage earning card (see Ben's links above under "Best Credit Card Deals") and then apply those gift cards to my Amazon.com account online to buy things on the Amazon.com site.
It requires some advance work but can yield a lot more value than 1 Hawaiian mile/$1 spent at amazon.com
@MilesAbound,
you need to be more active on your blog to be seen.
Such a timely post Ben. I went for my annual purchase on Amazon.com and was so pi$$ed to not have the mall work for me!
The Hawaiian mall was never really that good. 1 mile per dollar was peanuts compared to the good you can do elsewhere. My recommendation is to use ebates or fatwallet for categories that pay cash back. Both pays more than the Hawaiian Mall. For other categories, support a site you find useful. For example, here is Frequent Miler's amazon link:
http://boardingarea.com/frequentmiler/shop/
I have a similar link on my UR mall page which supports that page...
The Hawaiian mall was never really that good. 1 mile per dollar was peanuts compared to the good you can do elsewhere. My recommendation is to use ebates or fatwallet for categories that pay cash back. Both pays more than the Hawaiian Mall. For other categories, support a site you find useful. For example, here is Frequent Miler's amazon link:
http://boardingarea.com/frequentmiler/shop/
I have a similar link on my UR mall page which supports that page by about 6% of every purchase. I won't link it here, as those who use that page know where to find it.
It definitely is a disappointment that they have decided to go this route. I made some good use of it while it was available but never really "raked" in the miles from it. I guess I just view it as something is better than nothing for my Amazon purchases. Plus once I get a couple Hawaiian air cards I can transfer everything to Hilton.
@mileswh$&@ transfer to Hilton is your best and only bet
A sad day. I actually posted about this a couple of weeks back: http://milesabound.com/hawiian-amazon-mall-earnings/. Now I know I'm not on your reader :( LOL
What a horrible was to word something. Who do they think they're kidding?
"All good things must come to an end"?
How about: The mediocre things apparently get "enhanced"
Now someone show me how to get around 2,000 Hawaiian miles out of my crappy account? Points.com won't let you transfer out under 5,000 miles.
Wow. I just started using that portal with my last Amazon purchase. So now I guess I'll have those 35 orphan Hawaiian miles for a while.
Boo. Installed and have been using Hawaiian toolbar for awhile as a result of getting amazon points easy with one click. May pitch toolbar.
I dont have any value for HA miles but since I make mondo purchases on Amazon I figured it was always good to get something for nothing. Alas, all good things come to an end.