Hawaiian Airlines Defecting from Virgin to Qantas

Hawaiian Airlines will end its partnership with Virgin Australia on 30 June 2025, as it prepares to form a new partnership with Qantas.

This will happen just a month after Virgin Australia also ends its partnership with Etihad Airways.

The end of Hawaiian’s partnership with Virgin Australia

Velocity Frequent Flyer members can continue to earn points and status credits for Hawaiian Airlines flights, as well as redeem points, until 30 June 2025. But:

• Velocity members will not be able to earn points or status credits when flying Hawaiian Airlines on or after 1 July 2025
• You can still redeem Velocity points for Reward Seats on Hawaiian Airlines until 30 June 2025, for travel up to 28 February 2026
• If you have a Velocity redemption booking on Hawaiian, you will still be able to change the travel date after 30 June 2025, but must complete all travel by 28 February 2026.

The Velocity Frequent Flyer website has more details about the upcoming changes to the program’s partnership with Hawaiian Airlines.

Velocity had a fairly limited partnership with Hawaiian Airlines

While the loss of any partnership is disappointing for frequent flyer program members, Velocity’s relationship with Hawaiian Airlines was somewhat constrained anyway. This was purely an earn/burn partnership, as there are literally no extra reciprocal status benefits for Velocity Silver, Gold or Platinum members flying Hawaiian.

Virgin Australia used to codeshare on Hawaiian Airlines services between Australia and Hawaii. You used to at least get lounge access if booked on a VA-marketed flight operated by Hawaiian Airlines. But Virgin stopped codesharing with Hawaiian Airlines before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The two most useful aspects of this partnership, until now, were:

• The ability to earn Velocity status credits on Hawaiian’s cheap inter-island First Class flights at the Business/First Class rate (good for Velocity status runs)
• The ability to redeem Velocity points for Hawaiian Airlines Business Class seats from Sydney and Auckland to Honolulu

That said, Hawaiian Airlines has been releasing hardly any Business Class reward seats lately to Velocity members on flights to/from Australia. We just checked Business Class award availability on the Sydney-Honolulu route, and found only:

• 5x seats on 23 May from Sydney to Honolulu
• 3x seats on 23 March, 4x seats on 5 June and 1x seat on 30 July from Honolulu to Sydney

Booking with Velocity points isn’t the easiest task, either. The Virgin Australia website does not show Hawaiian Airlines reward seats, so you’d need to call the Velocity Membership Contact Centre to check availability and make a booking.

Hawaiian Airlines is joining Oneworld

Ultimately, the end of Virgin Australia’s partnership with Hawaiian Airlines doesn’t come as a huge surprise. It was widely anticipated because Hawaiian Airlines is currently merging with Alaska Airlines.

Although the two airline brands will remain separate, the airlines are integrating their operations. Hawaiian Airlines will join the Oneworld alliance in 2026 as part of this process.

Qantas due to launch Hawaiian Airlines partnership in October 2025

Ahead of Hawaiian Airlines joining Oneworld, Qantas already announced that it plans to launch its own partnership with the airline in October 2025. Qantas has already been a partner of its new parent company Alaska Airlines for many years, even well before that airline joined Oneworld in 2021.

It was unlikely that Hawaiian Airlines would ever become a Qantas partner while still remaining aligned with its main rival, Virgin Australia.

Currently, the only airline that partners with both Qantas and Virgin Australia is Qatar Airways. That said, the partnership between Qantas and Qatar Airways is… not exactly going strong. In fact, Qatar Airways reportedly tried to get Qantas kicked out of Oneworld a few years ago.

Qantas has claimed that the addition of Hawaiian Airlines to its network of partner airlines will help it to unlock hundreds of thousands of additional Classic Reward seats each year for Qantas Frequent Flyer members. But with a total of just 13 Business Class reward seats currently available on Hawaiian Airlines flights to or from Australia, most of those probably won’t be of much use to the vast majority of Aussies…

On the plus side, once Hawaiian Airlines is a part of Oneworld, Qantas Frequent Flyers will be able to enjoy much more consistent status recognition and benefits on Hawaiian than Velocity members ever did!

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include aviation, economics & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.