MilesBuzz! - Help! fly my folks to Hawaii on my miles for 50th anniversary

My sibs and I got my folks a great inter-island Hawaiian cruise, but no air included. I want to use my miles to fly them to Kahalui, Maui from San Francisco. I have 62k AmX Membership Rewards, 36k on Continental, 34k on United, 2k on Delta, 1k on Hawaiian. I'd like as simple an itinerary since my folks are elderly and not seasoned travelers. Any suggestions?

UA would be your best bet for a direct flight, but AMEX does not redeem for UA. So, were I in your shoes, I might try to get a CO business elite with connections through Hoston. Alternatively, you might see if you could redeem your AMEX with Delta and then have two tickets @ 30K a pop, but this involves backtracking to Salt Lake or DFW. As well, I think that Delta might allow you to claim UA awards, but I am not sure if that program is still in place, but it is worth a call as that will give you exactly what you are looking for for the fewest miles. Good luck.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by mktozd:
I might try to get a CO business elite with connections through Hoston. </font>

While people here might really like airplanes, assuming Strolly's parents are remotely like the rest of the world, they might not be too hip on flying to HI via Houston (an extra 8 hours or so on tix that don't earn miles).

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Strolly:
My sibs and I got my folks a great inter-island Hawaiian cruise, but no air included. I want to use my miles to fly them to Kahalui, Maui from San Francisco. I have 62k AmX Membership Rewards, 36k on Continental, 34k on United, 2k on Delta, 1k on Hawaiian. I'd like as simple an itinerary since my folks are elderly and not seasoned travelers. Any suggestions?</font>

If you have the money you can get a great deal. It may be the best way to go.

It will be almost impossible for your parents to get BF tickets on CO to Hawaii unless they hold a high elite status.

------------------
What do you mean I can't charge my heart bypass to my Visa? I need the MILES!!!

You can still claim a UA award with Delta miles BUT the award is 35K miles and there are fewer seats avail for award than if the miles are coming from a UA account - at least that is what Delta and UA tell me. We just got one for one family member going to our Hawaii reunion - he is the only one not on the flight with everyone else. Does Delta fly to Maui??

Its been a year since I moved from Hawaii but I believe delta still has the non-stop from SFO to HNL. From there you can use 10,000 United miles for 2 roundtrips on Aloha Air to get you back and forth to Maui.

Go online to Hawaiin Air and buy them two tickets for just over $300.00 a ticket. They don't get any cheaper than that.

These are your parents, it's there 50th aniversary and your trying to get them there by going thru Dallas or Salt Lake! hmmmmm...lol. Trust me, make it easy on them and go buy the tickets...

PlayHard out...

Deposit 60,000 Amex miles into your Delta account, then redeem them for 2 coach class tixs for SFO-HNL. Combine that with the use of UA miles for inter-island tickets on Aloha as mentioned by amlowe and you're all set. IMHO the SFO-HNL flights are usually pretty open for award seats. Otherwise, airfares are pretty cheap right now. See what UA has to offer non-stop SFO-OGG.

DELTA WILL TAKE YOU TO MAUI, NO NEED FOR INTER ISLAND TICKET.CASH AMEX POINTS.YOU WILL NEED 60.000 SKYMILES.

------------------

You can also fly on NorthWest Airlines using your continental One-Pass miles. (In addition, you can transfer American Express Membership Rewards to Continental One-Pass as well and ticket these on NorthWest)

I believe that NW has flights from the west coast to Hawaii.