PatrickNJ

If you traveled most between these 2 airports, to what airline would you throw your loyalty?

keisari

Sounds like a simple question but it is a loaded one.

What are you looking for in loyalty
What are your travel patterns
Are you flying coach or first
Are you very price sensitive
Do you plan on frequent last minute changes
Are you collecting miles for something specific
Are you already collecting points with a credit card

Once you give us some more information I am sure somebody will guide through the decision.

Mwenenzi

PatrickNJ Welcome to FT

A very loaded and subjective question. Look here:- http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/infor...help-here.html

1KHI

I travel often in this route. For Hawaii based flyers who are price sensitive on LA-HNL, the best frequent flyer program is AA. You get about 5K elite miles on a roundtrip, 10K redeemable miles if you have top status. To match that number of reward miles on this route on DL or UA, you need to spend $909 before taxes on a roundtrip. That's more than double the typical fare in this route.

On AA, Upgrades for executive platinums are pretty good. However, if you don't plan to achieve that status, you'll have to spend your certificates or pay for the upgrade.

UA and DL doesn't give as many miles, but provide complementary upgrades for low levels. They're hit or miss in these flights, but I have known golds who clear about 50% of the time depending on the day of the week.

dvs7310

How many miles can you fly in a year? Are you doing this route weekly, monthly, semi-annually?

Agree with others here, if you can get 100k elite qualifying miles a year, do AA hands down (at least in the current environment). If not that much but if you can make mid-tier of 50k or 75k then United and Delta start to look better.

If you're paying for F that changes things significantly and I'd then go for seat comfort. From LAX if I recall correctly, all 3 of the majors have domestic F but Hawaiian has a marginally better hard product on their A330

flashptproducers

Alaska has a direct, they're usually significantly less expensive than AA, but a OneWorld, so miles collection is the same. Plus, a free mai-tai when you land to ward off the hawaiian heat.

Mwenenzi

Alaska is not a OneWorld member. But is a ff partner of several OW airlines.

beckoa

AS' direct comes from SAN.

It is a good flight option if driving that far south is reasonable for you.

I like it myself, but tend to connect from somewhere else like BOS or SEA.

rajuabju

Avios. Reedem on AA (or even AS)

Enigma368

+1

dvs7310

Avios are great if you can redeem on point to point flights, but actually AA miles tend to be better on connecting flights, especially going long haul when you might need 2 connections. Avios also are weak for domestic first class on AA.

I have personally found good use for Avios but it depends on where the user wants to redeem to, if HNL based then your choice of destinations without a connection is extremely limited.

JDiver

One more day until the big Avios devaluation.

For the OP, Alaska might be the ticket. Good partnerships, economical and decent service and various Hawai'i flights.