gdub88

We're trying to go in the range of Dec. 10-Dec. 23. Ten to eleven days would be good. I've found some flights to get us there from AA at anywhere from 90,000 to 145,000 pts. United can get us there for about 90,000 pts from my estimation.

Are there any good deals that I'm missing here? Would it be better for me to fly SW to the west coast then hop on a flight to OGG from there? Please help as I'm sort of new to this!

FYI - I have 95,000 Ultimate Rewards pts and will have 60,000 United pts at the end of the month (have about 10,000 currently). Thanks so much for any insight provided!!

cba13

I did a quick search on ba.com for your exact dates and it came up with available flights on american from LAX-OGG for 25K avios each. if you can catch a southwest flight to lax and then convert UR pts to avios and book that way it may be a cheap option for you.

mrkymark

Thats a really creative and cheap routing. I agree thay is the best option.

gdub88

How are you doing this? When I get on ba.com it tells me this when I try to do LAX to OGG: "British Airways does not have traffic rights to operate directly between these two cities."

Sorry for being such a noob. I appreciate your help.

cba13

You are probably not searching for available awards. You need to set up a british airways account before you can view award availability.

gdub88

Got it. Thanks for helping!

SanDiego1K

Avios can also be used for the nonstop Alaskan Airlines SAN-OGG flight.

84fiero

It would help to know where you are starting from. Also, how many people is "we"?

It partly depends on how much you want to keep out of pocket costs down, too. And to what extent you're willing to spend more miles to offset costs. You'll pay more (generally) in miles or cash for holiday season travel.

Flying to another (west coast or other) destination first: may open up some mileage options, but I'd make a couple of points on that:

- Be very careful if you book separate tickets in order to construct your trip (e.g., buy a ticket on Airline A from ORD-LAX and then buy a separate ticket on Airline B from LAX-OGG). Allow plenty of time between flights, possibly even overnight depending on the extent of any backup options or if you're traveling from/through areas with bad winter weather potential during Dec.

This is because if you mis-connect, for whatever reason, and miss the next (separately booked) flight, the airline operating the next flight has no obligation to get you to your final destination once you missed the flight, or to rebook you at no cost on another flight. Nor does the first airline owe you any compensation for missing the next flight due to their late arrival. There are some exceptions to the rule, and sometimes one might get lucky to have a merciful airline agent help you out, but don't count on it.

- Don't assume Southwest is the cheapest, look around.

- Check other points where you may be able to pick up an onward flight, other than strictly the west coast.

- Check other options near your point of origin, even if it means driving a few hours. For example I sometimes drive to ORD (5 hrs) or DTW (3 hrs) if the airports in my area don't have availability or are too expensive.

Neighbor islands: You could try checking on flights to/from a neighbor island airport and connecting to/from OGG on a separate ticket (keeping in mind the caution about separately booked tickets). Sometimes award flight availability may be better to HNL, or KOA, or somewhere else. While expensive for all the farther they fly, intra-Hawaiian tickets should be under $80 one-way. UA charges 6,000 miles one-way for intra-Hawaiian flights if you wanted to redeem miles for them.

One ways: Keep in mind that you can do a UA redemption one-way and BA the other way, for example. You may come up with a better value that way.

Good luck - I love Maui and am overdue for a return trip soon!

EmailKid

Some very good points ^

It's right in the title:

84fiero

Guess I jumped right to the post text and missed it, sorry. I'd still have the same advice in any case.

EmailKid

No worries

And sound advice it is ^

84fiero

I'll see if I have time to look at any availability with those parameters later when I'm at a real computer...