Dangerous information, Alaska Airways followers: American Categorical Membership Rewards will finish transfers to HawaiianMiles on June 30.
This successfully ends transfers from Membership Rewards to Alaska Airways Mileage Plan.
Because the center of final yr, HawaiianMiles have been transferable to Alaska Airways Mileage Plan, giving Amex cardholders an oblique solution to switch their Membership Rewards factors to Alaska Airways. Alaska Airways launched this characteristic after it acquired Honolulu-based Hawaiian Airways final yr.
Whereas there is no official assertion from American Categorical on the time of writing, the financial institution is posting this information on the factors switch web page of the American Categorical web site and cellular app.
This provides American Categorical cardholders a couple of month and a half to switch their factors to HawaiianMiles (after which to Mileage Plan). Whereas we do not often suggest speculative transfers from a bank card factors program to a selected airline or lodge companion, this may very well be an exception for Alaska Airways and Oneworld followers. That is as a result of Alaska Airways Mileage Plan affords a number of the greatest award charges on short-haul home flights and transatlantic business-class flights from the East Coast.
For instance, an financial system flight on American Airways with a distance of underneath 700 miles usually requires solely 4,500 Alaska miles, and a transatlantic business-class flight between 1,501 and three,500 miles begins at simply 45,000 miles on companion airways resembling Aer Lingus. In lots of instances, these costs are considerably decrease than competing Oneworld loyalty applications like American Airways AAdvantage.
The best way to switch Membership Rewards factors to Hawaiian Airways (and Alaska Airways)
Transferring Amex Membership Rewards factors to Alaska Airways Mileage Plan is a two-step course of.
First, it’s good to switch your Membership Rewards factors to HawaiianMiles in your American Categorical account’s “Rewards & Advantages” web page. You’ll be able to switch as much as 999,000 Membership Rewards factors to Hawaiian per day. In our expertise, Membership Rewards factors switch immediately to Hawaiian, although Amex says it may take as much as two days.
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In the event you plan to switch factors from Membership Rewards to Hawaiian earlier than June 30, observe that you’ll pay an excise tax offset payment of 0.06 cents per mile, as much as a most of $99 per switch. You’ll be able to cost this payment to an American Categorical card or cowl it with Membership Rewards factors. Nevertheless, we don’t suggest redeeming factors to cowl the payment since you will solely get 0.5 cents per level in worth.
When you switch Membership Rewards factors to Hawaiian, you should use the airline’s factors switch instrument to maneuver factors between your Hawaiian and Alaska accounts. These transfers additionally course of immediately normally.
Backside line
Whereas it is unlucky that Membership Rewards factors will now not be transferable to Hawaiian Airways (and, by proxy, Alaska Airways), we anticipated this transformation. Alaska Airways has been clear about its plans to quickly merge HawaiianMiles into Alaska Airways Mileage Plan and finally part out bank card transfers.
That mentioned, Bilt Rewards Factors switch to Alaska Airways Mileage Plan, too, so vacationers nonetheless have one solution to earn Alaska miles with a transferable factors card.
In the event you plan to fly with Alaska and its companions quickly, you would possibly think about transferring a few of your Membership Rewards factors to HawaiianMiles (after which to Mileage Plan) earlier than it is too late. Alaska miles are among the many most beneficial within the factors and miles house, largely as a result of program’s low award costs and an in depth record of nonalliance companions. In the event you do that, nevertheless, you’ll quit some flexibility and will depart your Alaska miles open to devaluation in the event you do not redeem them shortly.
