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 12 months, HawaiianMiles have been transferable to Alaska Airways Mileage Plan, giving Amex cardholders an oblique technique to switch their Membership Rewards factors to Alaska Airways. Alaska Airways launched this function after it acquired Honolulu-based Hawaiian Airways final 12 months.
Whereas there is not any 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 cell app.
This offers American Categorical cardholders a few month and a half to switch their factors to HawaiianMiles (after which to Mileage Plan). Whereas we do not normally suggest speculative transfers from a bank card factors program to a selected airline or lodge associate, this may very well be an exception for Alaska Airways and Oneworld followers. That is as a result of Alaska Airways Mileage Plan affords among the finest 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 below 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 associate airways akin to Aer Lingus. In lots of instances, these costs are considerably decrease than competing Oneworld loyalty applications like American Airways AAdvantage.
Associated: You might wish to switch your Amex factors to HawaiianMiles (after which to Alaska Airways Mileage Plan) quickly
Methods 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, that you must switch your Membership Rewards factors to HawaiianMiles in your American Categorical account’s “Rewards & Advantages” web page. You possibly can 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 might probably take as much as two days.
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When you plan to switch factors from Membership Rewards to Hawaiian earlier than June 30, notice that you’ll pay an excise tax offset charge of 0.06 cents per mile, as much as a most of $99 per switch. You possibly can cost this charge to an American Categorical card or cowl it with Membership Rewards factors. Nevertheless, we don’t suggest redeeming factors to cowl the charge since you will solely get 0.5 cents per level in worth.
When you switch Membership Rewards factors to Hawaiian, you should utilize the airline’s factors switch device to maneuver factors between your Hawaiian and Alaska accounts. These transfers additionally course of immediately typically.
Backside line
Whereas it is unlucky that Membership Rewards factors will 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 ultimately part out bank card transfers.
That stated, Bilt Rewards Factors switch to Alaska Airways Mileage Plan, too, so vacationers nonetheless have one technique to earn Alaska miles with a transferable factors card.
When 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 respected within the factors and miles house, largely because of the program’s low award costs and an in depth listing of nonalliance companions. When you do that, nevertheless, you’ll hand over some flexibility and will go away your Alaska miles open to devaluation for those who do not redeem them rapidly.
