US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - kauai, hawaii on usair??

I did not realize when I pinned my hopes on a summer 2006 trip to Kauai that the airline we have all our points with doesn't fly to Kauai!! I've been calling USAir daily since the 331 day window opened up to try to obtain four award seats on their partner, United, for travel any day next June to no avail.

I've been told by some that the "inventory" may not have been deposited yet by United. Others have told me they just don't get many award seats at all and to not get my hopes up. We'd be willing to travel in pairs on separate flights, if necessary.

Should I give up? Or is there some other angle I could work?

We were able to use our miles on USAIR to get to HNL and from there it was just $80 OW on Aloha. Your best bet may be looking at award seats (2 at a time) from SFO or lAX inot HNL. Once you get confirmation on flights across the ocean then it is easy to find 'feeder' flights from your destination into LAX or SFO.
Also, don't forget to call United directly and see if you can get them to check inventory.

At the least, you should be able to exchange your USAirways miles with someone on Flyertalk for United or even DL miles, as DL goes to HNL too.

Hope this helps.

Getting to HI using US miles on UA is tough but I've done it. They key for me was to be flexible about dates, and then to take advantage of the relatively cheap inter-island flights to provide flexibility. I booked PHL-DEN-HNL returning KOA-ORD-PHL for this November about 320 days in advance entirely on UA metal by calling US. At the time I booked it I had no status on UA. I had to move my dates about 3 days from my ideal, but that's fine for a relatively long trip. Since I have UA miles I was able to use their relatively cheap (5000 miles) inter-island awards on Aloha Airlines to get me from HNL to KOA. Otherwise the O/W fare is about $90 and R/T about $170.

Summer is obviously tougher than November, but keep calling, be flexible, you'll get there.

HP will be serving Hawaii, but all the FF seats may be gone when the US Air members are are to book awards.

Too bad that the airlines did not establish a frequent flyer relationship pending the merger.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=450891

At the least, you should be able to exchange your USAirways miles with someone on Flyertalk for United or even DL miles, as DL goes to HNL too.

Hope this helps.

You can exchange miles with someone?! How would I go about doing this?

Hawaii can be difficult to obtain award tickets. You have to keep calling. I am going in August. I started calling in January and there was nothing available, first or coach. In late March, I was able to get an outbound leg, and there was not even a return segment open through the end of the year for her to book! I persisted, and by April, I got dates that could work--and in F! I was pretty flexible which helped. And make friends with the call center folks. They just might keep an eye out for you. ;)

Lesson is continue to call, be persistent. You never know when someone may cancel. They just don't make many award seats available.