American Express cardholders in Australia can transfer Amex Membership Rewards points to HawaiianMiles, the frequent flyer program of Hawaiian Airlines, at a 2:1 rate! You just need to transfer at least 2,000 Amex Points at a time. It will take up to one business day for the miles to land in your HawaiianMiles account.

Although you can redeem HawaiianMiles for hotels, car rentals and gift cards, the best value use of HawaiianMiles would be award flights with Hawaiian Airlines and its partners.

Plus, you now also have the option to convert your HawaiianMiles into Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles! This is a huge new development that drastically increases the value of HawaiianMiles.

As an added bonus, HawaiianMiles do not expire. Conveniently, you can also cancel award bookings for no charge and get a full refund.

This guide explains how to use HawaiianMiles to book award tickets, upgrade your flight or gain Alaska Airlines miles.

Redeeming HawaiianMiles for Hawaiian Airlines flights

You can of course redeem HawaiianMiles to book award travel on Hawaiian Airlines. This would be the main reason to transfer points from your credit card rewards program into the Hawaiian Airlines loyalty program.

HawaiianMiles redemptions for Hawaiian Airlines flights work a bit differently to traditional frequent flyer programs. That’s because you can redeem miles to book any available Economy seat on any Hawaiian Airlines flight, with no blackout dates. The award charts on the Hawaiian Airlines website set out the number of miles required to book a flight – but there are different award price tiers based on the level of demand for the specific flight you wish to book.

Hawaiian Airlines also makes a large number of seats available to book in Business Class (sold as First Class on domestic US flights), or you can upgrade using miles.

On its flights to Sydney and Auckland, Hawaiian Airlines operates Airbus A330s with lie-flat Business Class seats.

Here is the award chart for one-way Hawaiian Airlines flights between Australia or New Zealand and Hawaii:

When flying to Honolulu with Hawaiian Airlines, you can add a connecting flight to any of the other Hawaiian islands to your itinerary for no extra miles.

Hawaiian Airlines Pualani Gold and Platinum members get a 12.5% discount off Main Cabin (Economy Class) awards. This offer is also available to US residents holding certain Hawaiian Airlines co-brand credit cards. The discounted price is shown in the “Discount Award Amount” column in the above chart.

How to book

You can redeem HawaiianMiles to book Hawaiian Airlines award flights directly on the airline’s website. After logging into your HawaiianMiles account, select “Show fare as miles”, as shown below:

You’ll then be shown the cheapest available award flight options for your selected route and date:

Different award levels

So, what determines whether an award flight is priced as Business Class 1 or Business Class 2? Or one of the seven different Main Cabin pricing levels?

At a basic level, the number of miles you need to book an award flight will be lower on flights with more seats still available for sale, where paid airfares are also cheaper. On flights that are in high demand, you could expect the number of miles required for an award seat to be higher.

The availability of award seats at each of the pricing tiers appears to be tied directly to the availability of paid airfares in certain RBDs, or fare classes.

You can check the number of miles needed to book any Hawaiian Airlines flight by logging into your HawaiianMiles account (it’s free to join) and searching on the airline’s website.

For advanced users, you can also work out the number of miles you’ll need by checking the availability of paid fare classes on the same flight. Travel agents can do this using their GDS, or you can conduct a Flight Availability search using ExpertFlyer.

As a general rule, there needs to be availability in the following commercial fare classes to book an award flight at each of the various pricing tiers:

HawaiianMiles has Hawaiian Airlines availability that other frequent flyer programs don’t

The ability to redeem points for Hawaiian Airlines flights is not new to Australians. That’s because Hawaiian Airlines partners with Velocity Frequent Flyer, and Australians can already redeem Velocity points for Hawaiian Airlines flights. It’s also possible to book Hawaiian Airlines award seats through the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club and American Airlines AAdvantage programs.

However, to book a Hawaiian Airlines Economy award with a partner airline, there needs to be either “T” class availability in Economy or “D” class in Business/First. This means you would only be able to redeem Velocity points for Hawaiian Airlines Business Class if there is “Business Class 1” availability on that flight.

With HawaiianMiles, you have access to all Economy seats on the plane, as well as Business Class 2 awards. The higher award levels obviously cost more miles, but are available on more flights.

HawaiianMiles vs Velocity award pricing

If you have Amex Membership Rewards points, you can transfer to both programs at a 2:1 rate. So, if a Hawaiian Airlines award seat is available through both HawaiianMiles and Velocity Frequent Flyer, which program should you use to book?

It really depends which program has the best award pricing for your specific trip. But HawaiianMiles will often work out to be a bit cheaper.

For example, a Hawaiian Airlines flight from Sydney to Honolulu would cost 42,000 Velocity points in Economy or 78,000 Velocity points for Business Class. But if you can get a Level 1 award, the price would be 40,000 HawaiianMiles for Economy or 65,000 HawaiianMiles for Business.

Upgrading Hawaiian Airlines flights

With HawaiianMiles, you can also upgrade paid Economy tickets on Hawaiian Airlines to Business or First Class.

The number of miles you’ll need for an upgrade is set out in the award charts on the Hawaiian Airlines website. There are two levels of upgrade awards:

• Saver upgrades cost the lowest number of miles and are available on Hawaiian Airlines flights with “A” class availability
• Flex upgrades cost double the miles compared to Saver upgrades and are available on Hawaiian Airlines flights with “P” class availability.

For example, you could upgrade from Economy to Business Class on a flight from Sydney to Honolulu for 45,000 HawaiianMiles if there are commercial airfares available in A class.

Redeeming HawaiianMiles on partner airlines

In theory, you can also redeem HawaiianMiles to book award travel on the following partner airlines:

• Japan Airlines
• JetBlue
• Korean Air
• Virgin Atlantic
• Virgin Australia

The Hawaiian Airlines website contains award charts for travel on each partner airline. All partner award bookings need to be made over the phone, by calling the HawaiianMiles Service Center within Hawaiian business hours. The USD25 ticketing fee is waived for partner airline award bookings.

However, there are quite a few restrictions on partner award bookings that limit the usefulness of partner award bookings for Australians.

Firstly, you need to book many partner airline awards (including Korean Air and Virgin Australia) at least 14 days in advance. For Japan Airlines domestic flights, you need to book within two months of departure.

Even then, award availability could be a big problem.

Using HawaiianMiles on Virgin Australia or Virgin Atlantic

Although the Hawaiian Airlines website has an award chart for Virgin Atlantic redemptions, this is accompanied by the following message:

Flight award redemptions on Partner Airline for Virgin Atlantic is temporary unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience.

The Hawaiian Airlines website has displayed this message for more than a year, so it appears the lack of availability might be more than just something “temporary”.

No such message is appended to the Virgin Australia award chart. However, in the past when I have called HawaiianMiles to check for award availability on Virgin Australia, I’ve been told that awards on this airline were also temporarily unavailable.

Using HawaiianMiles to book Japan Airlines flights

You can theoretically redeem HawaiianMiles to book one-way or return flights on Japan Airlines. According to the award chart, it would cost the following amount of miles to book a one-way Japan Airlines flight from Sydney or Melbourne to Tokyo (double the amount for a round-trip):

• Economy: 30,000 HawaiianMiles + taxes
• Premium Economy: 45,000 HawaiianMiles + taxes
• Business: 60,000 HawaiianMiles + taxes

That’s fairly competitive award pricing, particularly for Premium Economy or Business. However, when I called Hawaiian Airlines, they told me that it isn’t possible to book Japan Airlines award tickets from Australia. Which is bizarre, given Sydney and Melbourne are specifically listed on the award chart.

Using HawaiianMiles to book Korean Air flights

Although Korean Air flies from Sydney and Brisbane to Seoul (Incheon), Australia is not listed on the award chart for Korean Air redemptions.

When I enquired about award availability on Korean Air’s Brisbane-Seoul route, the call centre operator got a system error.

Presumably, you should at least be able to redeem HawaiianMiles for Korean Air flights between Seoul and Honolulu.

Using HawaiianMiles to book JetBlue flights

Awards on JetBlue are just based on the cash price of the ticket you want to book. So, there isn’t any real opportunity to get outsized value here and we’d suggest just buying a ticket on JetBlue if you wish to fly with that US-based airline.

Convert your HawaiianMiles into Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles

Hawaiian Airlines is currently in the process of merging with Alaska Airlines. As a result, since September 2024, it’s now possible to transfer miles between the Hawaiian and Alaska Airlines loyalty programs for free, at a 1:1 rate.

This is a great new development as it opens up the opportunity to redeem miles for flights across the Oneworld alliance, as well as some of Alaska’s other niche partner airlines. Alaska Airlines has competitive reward flight pricing and you can make most bookings easily on the airline’s website.

Our guide to converting HawaiianMiles into Alaskan miles has all the details!

Is it worth transferring Amex Points to HawaiianMiles?

If you want to use your Amex points to fly on Hawaiian Airlines, it would definitely be worth checking what award availability and pricing is on offer through HawaiianMiles. You can use HawaiianMiles to book any available seat on any Hawaiian Airlines flight, except on Business/First where the only remaining commercial airfares are in full-fare “J” class.

Award pricing is dynamic, but chances are that if it’s more expensive to book a particular flight through HawaiianMiles than with a partner frequent flyer program (such as Velocity), there wouldn’t be any availability through the partner program anyway.

Transferring Amex points to HawaiianMiles could definitely also be worthwhile as a “back door” method of acquiring valuable Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles!

We generally wouldn’t suggest trying to use HawaiianMiles to book award travel on Hawaiian’s partner airlines due to the difficulty in actually making a successful booking.

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.