In September 2024, we saw Alaska Airlines’ takeover of Hawaiian Airlines close. It has been an absolutely fascinating couple of months for Alaska Air Group, given the direction the company is headed.
We’re going to see the airline turn Seattle into a global gateway (with Seattle to Tokyo being the first route), new lounges will open, a new premium credit card will launch, and more. In this post, I wanted to take an updated look at what we can expect from Alaska Mileage Plan and HawaiianMiles over the coming months, as a lot will change.
In this post:
A new Alaska loyalty program will launch mid-2025
Alaska Air Group intends to maintain both Alaska and Hawaiian branding, as this is an important commitment that the company has made to the state of Hawaii. However, we do know that the company plans to form a single loyalty program in mid-2025. At that point, the HawaiianMiles program will be discontinued.
Now, we don’t know exactly how this will work in practice, in terms of branding. I suspect that the loyalty program may still have elements of both Alaska and Hawaiian branding — maybe there will both be an Alaska Mileage Plan and Hawaiian Mileage Plan program, with the only difference being the branding.
1:1 mileage transfers between the two programs are already possible online at no cost, so at least this gives you the flexibility to transfer miles. The reality is that Alaska Mileage Plan is way more lucrative than HawaiianMiles, so I’d consider a unified program launching to be good news. This will make it easy to earn and redeem miles across both airlines.
Just keep in mind that Hawaiian doesn’t plan to join the oneworld alliance until 2026, so if you want to earn or redeem other oneworld miles, or take advantage of oneworld elite benefits, you’d have to wait until 2026 to do that on Hawaiian operated flights.
When the new loyalty program launches in 2025, I’d expect it to basically be along the lines of the current Mileage Plan program, so don’t expect many surprises. There are of course lots of great ways to redeem Mileage Plan miles. On top of that, Mileage Plan has already announced major program changes for 2025, including being able to earn elite miles for award flights.
The Bank of America credit card portfolio will survive
When it comes to credit cards, Alaska Mileage Plan has co-branded credit cards issued by Bank of America, while HawaiianMiles has co-branded credit cards issued by Barclays.
Once a single loyalty program is formed, the expectation is that the Alaska Mileage Plan partnership with Bank of America will continue. Not only that, but it will actually be expanded. In addition to the existing Alaska co-branded credit cards, we’ll see the launch of a new premium credit card.
The expectation is that Hawaiian’s co-branded credit cards with Barclays will be discontinued, and members will be given the option to switch to a Bank of America card. Of course not having access to as many sign-up bonuses isn’t great, but I think that’s ultimately a logical development.
Bilt transfers will stay, Amex transfers won’t
When it comes to transferable points currencies, Alaska Mileage Plan exclusively partners with Bilt Rewards, while HawaiianMiles partners with Amex Membership Rewards.
The expectation is that the Alaska Mileage Plan partnership with Bilt will continue, given that this is part of a larger tie-up, and seemingly Bank of America doesn’t have an issue with it (or at least doesn’t have a say). Meanwhile the expectation is that HawaiianMiles will be eliminated as an Amex Membership Rewards partner around the time the programs merge, though possibly even before that.
Loyalty was a major motivation for the Hawaiian takeover
Nowadays US carriers — even the most successful ones — make a large percentage of their profits from their loyalty programs, and in particular, from their lucrative co-branded credit card agreements. For an airline of its size, Alaska is really good at making money off its loyalty program.
It’s interesting to note that for Alaska Air Group, the upside with the loyalty program was a major motivator for acquiring Hawaiian. As a percentage of total revenue, Alaska does much better with its loyalty program than Hawaiian. That seems like a major opportunity, since Hawaiian is based in a place that many people love to vacation, and that’s a major motivator for consumers to pick up a credit card.
So from being able to better monetize Hawaiian’s customer base in Hawaii, to being able to offer reward flights to Alaska loyalists, there’s so much upside here, and untapped potential. To drive home this point, below are some slides from Alaska’s Investor Day presentation, showing how the company sees this playing out.
Bottom line
With Alaska’s takeover of Hawaiian having closed earlier this year, we’re increasingly learning what we can expect in the future. It’s already possible to transfer miles between the programs at a 1:1 ratio.
Around mid-2025, we should see a new unified loyalty program launch, which will be a major development. Around the same time, we can expect Hawaiian’s Barclays cards to be discontinued, and can also expect Hawaiian to be removed as an Amex transfer partner.
Alaska Mileage Plan is way more lucrative than HawaiianMiles, so I’m excited about a single program being formed, as I feel like there’s upside all-around.
What’s your take on the future of Alaska & Hawaiian miles?
When will Amex offer another transfer bonus to Hawaii?
It’s going to revenue based … if not right away in a couple of years for sure. No reason not to when everyone else in the states is doing it.
Under the DOJ stipulations for the merger it literally cannot be revenue based for seven years. So no, it won't be anytime soon.
Alaska has a network disadvantage - and will continue to post-merger - where it needs distance-based to make up for it. It also has become too engrained in the product, like free bags on Southwest.
I found a lower fare today on a Hawaiian code share operated by Alaska Air . I was watching prices from IAH HNL one way in March that was $311 consistent for the past month. Today I got an alert for only $190 thru Hawaiian.
Take a look at the icon they use to depict "affluent, next-generation travelers"...yikes, looks like some homeless person off the streets of Pioneer Square. Either someone in their graphics department was having some fun, or they have some pretty weird ideas about affluent customers.
Not wonderful at all for Barclays as they will lost out on AA and HA’s credit card portfolio.
@Stanely C
I’m paying off my Barclays aviator and closing the account early next year.
I hope Alaska also maintains earning based on miles flown. I took one trip to Hawai’i last year in Y and got over 10K miles. I don’t think there’s any other U.S. airline where a round trip transcon in coach will give you enough for a redemption. Great program!
Exciting times. I’ve been shuffling all my MR points to Hawaiian since the 1:1 transfer was announced.
As for BILT… that’s tougher. Hyatt *slightly* takes the edge over Alaska as most valuable partner, but I could be swayed.
Very much depends on the use case. Short haul AA flights up to 1200-ish miles are pretty competitive on Alaska. You can get higher CPP on those redemptions than with Hyatt. There are also key sweet spots with Alaska to Europe and South America that are just incredible value. But Hyatt probably has the easiest path to decent value of any redemption option across airline and hotel programs. You rarely have to think hard about it.
Transferrable Avios as the currency for an independent Mileage Plan.
Gross. No thank you. That would cause some extreme dilution that would ultimately end in devaluations.
thank GOD MileagePlan will likely be unscathed. Mileage Plan has so many wonderful sweet spots for redemptions & was aware of the risk AS leadership could use the merger to “streamline” the program, as happens during transitions like this often
Everyone seems to be assuming that the new mileage program will be Alaska mileage plan with Hawaiian thrown in. But that's not what they're saying, which is a "new plan" is coming.