Max M

I've seen that upgrades are offered for purchase [if there's availabilty] if online check-in is done for interisland flights.

Does Hawaiian offer the ability to purchase an upgrade to F at check-in [if there's availabilty] on interisland awards, or are these purchasable upgrades only good on cash [purchased] tickets?

If you did use HawaiianMiles for an interisland awards, and were offered the ability to pay to upgrade to F, what was the cost? How recent was this occurance?

Thanks!

Lavarock7

I have traveled interisland perhaps 20 or 30 trips and never upgraded to first. Those who know me admit I am cheap, but I just don't see the excitement of first class on interisland trips.

Yes, the seats are more plush and the you will get served quickly, but the flights are so short that coach barely gets their water or juice before they have to give it up.

We are talking perhaps an hour from gate to gate and that is on a long flight like HNL to KOA. Often the plane gets up to altitude and starts descent with little or no cruise time. A current Hawaiian flight 120 shows a 30 minute flight and 6 minutes at altitude from HNL to KOA.

So, yes, early boarding, plush seats and early drink service which will all occur so quickly you may not even notice :-)

slippahs

The answer to your question is yes, for $50 per seat, unless you are a Pualani elite. HA will attempt to upsell you the F seat regardless of whether you are booked on a paid or award ticket, so long as F seats remain.

I am in the same boat as Lavarock, nearing 20+ segments this year, all in Y. Just no need for an F seat. Heck, I'll even board dead last and pick a seat in the very back if that means getting to my destination earlier. It's 20-50 minutes max. Entirely bearable for such a short hop.

turkeyRIOO

The $50 upgrade inter-island is a great deal if you have baggage. We usually travel as a family of four and have a family lottery for the F seat if we can get it. 2 free bags (with a little flexibility normally on weight limits) , priority security, and access to the club for a coke. I would have a hard time justifying without the hassle free bags though.

Max M

Thanks slippahs for the info. I've flown HNL-KOA [and back] so, yes, in most cases, there's no need for the F seat.

However, my fiancee and I will have 2 checked bags each, so for us, the $50 is worth the cost of the upgrade.

Having shelled out for discount F on our KOA-HNL return in 2011, I was exceptionally disappointed that HA didn't enforce the boarding priority for F, and when we boarded, there was no overhead bin space left in F.

So I had to fight the counterflow of traffic to retrieve my bag in the overhead, and being in the bulkhead of F, it was not fun.

Also the only adult beverage available to drink was only one choice.

slippahs

Couple of observations: First row in F does not have overhead storage because of equipment. So if you are in the bulkheads, you will have to swim upstream. Also, there is no dedicated priority boarding for F passengers. It is F pax, all Pualani elites, and all Premier Club members. Sometimes, it's 1/2 the plane that preboards. Finally, checked bags are $17/piece. So with two, that's $34 for the checked bags, with an cost of $33 for the upgrade per person. I suppose that's not too bad.

SquarePeg

Just want to make sure I understand this. One way interisland flight - If there are 4 of us and 2 of us upgrade at check in it would be $100 and we would be allowed to check 4 bags (regular cost $68). So for $32 more, 2 of us can sit in F? It's a short flight (OGG-HNL) but that is something to consider...

slippahs

Wirelessly posted (iPhone-ETOPS: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 6_1_3 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0 Mobile/10B329 Safari/8536.25)

Yup. But you won't know of availability until check in.

lkar

We do the same thing when there are 4 of us to OGG. We buy one F seat for the two free bags -- a net cost of $16. Then, the person in the front walks straight off the plane and goes to get the car while the others get the bags.

Downunder girl

I am thinking of doing this purely for the bag allowance and the better status credits for partner airline Virgin Australia. I have a couple of questions, however.

There are two of us and we are booked in H fare econ one way and used our HA miles for the return leg (only because they were expiring and we have so little anyway).

So if we did do the F upgrade at check in, what fare type would they usually book the F seat into? I guess what I really need to know, is it going to be into an F fare bucket or still in Y but as an upgrade. If its not booked into F fare bucket, then not really worth it to me for the status credits.

HawaiianStyle

You would need to check in as early as possible. HA offers Pualani Platinums free upgrade to first 24 hours before flight. Normally there are at least a couple with status on the flights.

beachbrew

has anyone had any expience doing this recently, thinking about trying (although the window will open at 1am est day of departure) for our recent trip for two reason 1) bag fees 2) security and check in lines we are flying from the east coast through phx to hnl(usairways) then ha to ogg and hope it can help expedite the security and recheck bags, as they are on seperate tickets.

fly747first

Have done about 10 of these flights and F went full on all of them. Then again, there are only 8 F seats to begin with.