Australians can now convert Amex Membership Rewards points into Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles, albeit indirectly, at great value.

This is now possible because Hawaiian Airlines, which is already an American Express transfer partner in Australia, is currently in the process of merging with Alaska Airlines.

Alaska’s merger with Hawaiian Airlines

The US Department of Transportation (DOT) has just approved the merger after Alaska Airlines announced its intention to purchase Hawaiian in late 2023. Now, the two airlines are beginning their integration.

The Alaska Air Group will retain both airlines as separate brands. However, they will eventually use a combined frequent flyer program. This is similar to Air France and KLM, which are part of the same company and both use Flying Blue as their loyalty program.

Alaska Airlines says it will provide details about a future combined loyalty program in 2025. In the meantime, the two airlines have just made it possible to transfer miles at a 1:1 rate in both directions between HawaiianMiles and Alaska Mileage Plan.

This is particularly great news for HawaiianMiles members, who can now access reward seats across the entire Oneworld alliance due to Alaska Airlines being a member.

How to transfer points from Amex to Alaska Airlines via Hawaiian

If you have American Express Membership Rewards points and would like to convert them into Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles, the first step is to transfer them to HawaiianMiles. For every 2 Amex points you transfer to Hawaiian Airlines, you get 1 Hawaiian mile.

Once those miles arrive in your HawaiianMiles account, you can convert them into Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles for free, at a 1:1 rate, through Points.com. You’ll be prompted to log into both accounts. The minimum transfer amount is 50 miles.

You’ll just need to be a member of both the Hawaiian and Alaska Airlines loyalty programs. The details on both accounts must match. Note that you can only transfer miles to yourself, and not to someone else.

Why transfer points to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan?

Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan is a really useful program for booking reward flights due to its relatively low redemption costs and wide selection of partner airlines. It’s part of Oneworld, so you can redeem miles to fly with airlines including Qantas. It also has some niche partners like Icelandair, Korean Air, Condor, Starlux, Aer Lingus and Air Tahiti Nui.

When redeeming Alaska miles on most partner airlines, you won’t pay any fuel or carrier surcharges – just the third-party taxes and a small partner award booking fee. The exceptions to this are redemptions on British Airways, Hainan Airlines and Icelandair. (Also note that Icelandair typically only makes Economy awards available.)

Alaska’s wide variety of partner airlines opens up plenty of opportunities for booking reward flights that Australians wouldn’t otherwise get access to. But even booking Qantas flights via Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan is often worthwhile because it’s cheaper than booking through Qantas Frequent Flyer.

For example, Alaska Airlines charges just 15,000 miles (plus taxes) to book a one-way Qantas Business Class flight from Australia to New Zealand.

Qantas Frequent Flyer charges 41,500 Qantas points (plus similar taxes) for the same thing.

Since you don’t pay the Qantas carrier charges when redeeming Alaskan miles for Qantas flights, you can also save quite a bit of cash on long-haul Qantas reward tickets. For example, Mileage Plan charges 75,000 miles + USD107 (~AU$155) to fly Qantas Business Class from Sydney to Honolulu:

The same Business reward costs 82,000 Qantas points + $356 in taxes & charges when booked on the Qantas website. That’s more than double the surcharges.

No more need for Marriott Bonvoy

There is one other way you could already convert Amex Membership Rewards points to Alaska Airlines miles without going through HawaiianMiles. But the value isn’t nearly as good.

You could already transfer Amex points into Marriott Bonvoy, then from Marriott Bonvoy into Mileage Plan. But, for example, 90,000 Amex points are worth 60,000 Marriott points – and they would convert to 25,000 Mileage Plan miles. Using the Hawaiian method, those same 90,000 Amex points would get you 45,000 Mileage Plan miles.

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 economics, aviation & 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.