OK, here I am, Chairman's Preferred with almost a million US miles, and I can't use them to go to Hawaii. I've got a bunch of Amex miles. In your great collective wisdom, what do I do? I want to go at a prime time, Christmas, and I want to go in First or Business from Washington DC, preferably directly to Maui. Thoughts? Suggestions?

Transfer your miles to CO or DL. DL is only 30K in coach, CO is 35. Not sure about F.

CO is the only US airline that has F seats worth redeeming points on to Hawaii. They don't discriminate their Hawaiian widebodies from their Asia/Europe widebodies, so you get the wonderful 55"-60" of seat pitch with lots of recline and personal TV.

Now for the bad news. You can't book those seats in advance with their lower-point rewards. You need to spend the higher amount if you want to 'guarantee' your seat. I don't know how many AMEX points you have, but I believe those standard BizFirst reward CO seats are 120,000 per roundtrip ticket instead of 60,000.

US is supposed to announce their new business plan soon, though, so you might wait and see if there is partner info in there.

I had the same USAir problem as you. I've been waiting for a new partner airline to be annouced, but finally threw in the towel. I booked reward travel from PHL to SFO. Then I booked a flight on American from San Jose to Maui for $466 (August travel).

The ordeal will actually work out OK for us becuase we'll spend a week in SFO before Maui.

I'm with you and so tired of waiting on US supposed "alliance" or "business plan" that has been rumored on this board for over a year.

You can transfer MR points to Delta, then redeem them for a flight on United (who has more flights to Hawaii). 35k for coach, 60k for first I believe.

Jeff

I know this is slightly off-topic, but realize we arent the only folks limited in mileage redemption options. DL people have no good options to get to Australia!

The best-case is to book a flight to Korea on Korean Air, and then another separate ticket from Seoul to Australia. No 'direct from US' flights, and the Singapore Airlines agreement with DL doesnt include Australia.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by jwhite4:
You can transfer MR points to Delta, then redeem them for a flight on United (who has more flights to Hawaii). 35k for coach, 60k for first I believe.

Jeff</font>

No it is only 30K for coach. Best deal for coach of any of the majors.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by hscottm:
I know this is slightly off-topic, but realize we arent the only folks limited in mileage redemption options. DL people have no good options to get to Australia!
</font>

Actually, they do. DL flies to HNL from SLC. All of the top 5 US majors fly there.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by PHL:
Actually, they do. DL flies to HNL from SLC. All of the top 5 US majors fly there.</font>

Ok, so how does DL then get you to Australia from HNL???

Whoops! I was confusing the post topic with your subject matter. 20 lashes with a wet noodle for me not paying close enough attention!