tulips

I'm new here and need some help! I'm trying to figure out how I can get my family of 4 (2 adults, 2 kids) to Hawaii (we'd prefer HNL, but open to other options too) using points/miles. We are new to the points and miles game so we are starting basically from scratch. We are planning for Fall 2018. We live closest to DFW and DAL. When I search google flights it looks like just about every major (and many others) have flights from here to HNL, so I can't really figure out how we should start accumulating miles/points. I've been trying to research all the options with using points on partner airlines and it's just so complicated and confusing! Is this possible? Does anyone have advice on what we should do?

Yoshi212

It is possible? Sure. It is going to be easy? Mostly likely no.

The good news: You're starting early. Ticketing for award seats generally starts ~330 days out so for travel in Fall 2018 you're looking at late fall-early winter 2017 which gives you time to research, earn and then ticket.

The bad news. It's going to take a lot of time doing the research deciding what route to take for CCs and which literal route to take. The other possible bad news is that trying to travel for 4 makes things more difficult even on a route such as this. I'm imagining you'll want to all travel on 1 flight together so you may want to get 1-3 award tickets and purchase the rest. This will keep total cost down while also increasing your flexibility.

The alternative: Sometimes flying can be the cheap part of a trip even with 4 people. Hotels can eat up far more money and do so quickly. You should consider hotel credit cards anyways even along with standard reward credit cards.

Start by reading the "stickies" & wikis on the credit card forums and the airlines you think about flying.
Consider banking relationships you already have.
The four big questions (to ask yourself) are:
-What cards do you/did you and your spouse currently have?
-What rewards (airline miles, credit card points) do you currently have?
-What kind of credit do you have? As this will point you towards what cards you can qualify for.
-What kind of spending can you handle to obtain the miles you need?

When you've come up with a strategy you should come back and lay it out of members here to evaluate and comment. We won't spoon-feed you how to get what you want but we'll gladly give you pushes in the right direction and tell you if you're thinking crazy.

A push: Singapore Airlines (SQ) has a sweet spot in its reward program for Hawaii redemptions and both Chase UR & Amex MR transfer into the SQ program.

A nudge: Hilton has some nice properties in HI and has cards with Amex & Citi offering large signup bonuses which can reduce your hotel costs. Marriott & SPG are merging with some crosslink in the programs. SPG has Amex and Marriott has Chase.

Duke787

Some great advice already. Another though to add - something like the CSR is useful here because it gives you a fixed 1.5 redemption value and is an SQ transfer partner (which Yoshi212 noted above.

Chase is also a KE transfer partner which has a sweet spot for DL flights to Hawaii if you can find saver DL space which is by no means guaranteed (a lot less so than UA saver which is what you need to redeem using SQ miles).

I also strongly echo the advice to consider going the route of getting the hotel for free but not the air travel. Poke around at the various hotel CCs. If you and your SO both grabbed the Chase Hyatt Card for example that's 4 nights at the GH Kauai (great place - I've been and loved it).

LondonElite

I think it is useful to give you a bit of perspective here. Four return tickets at the saver level on United will cost you 180,000 miles (360,000 at the standard rate). Will you be able to accumulate this many miles in the next seven/eight months?

If you are planning to travel in late-2018, you should be ready to book these tickets when they are released likely to be ca 11 months prior, but more can be released leading up to the flight date. You obviously want to travel as a group, so buying one ticket here and one ticket there isn't an option. Lots of people want to go to Hawaii so the demand for these award tickets always outstrips the supply. You may need to consider taking what you can in miles and buying the remaining tickets with cash.

tulips

Thank you all for your replies. I have been researching it for the past few months, and while I've seen several options that require fewer miles like Flying Blue, Korean, Singapore, and British Airways (a couple of you mentioned some of those too), most of what I have seen have been hypothetical situations or just 1 person trips. I was trying to figure out realistically if we would be able to find enough space for all of us. But I'm guessing from the reactions here that it won't be likely.

I was focusing on the flights instead of hotels because we generally don't stay at chain hotels. We tend to prefer rentals through airbnb, vrbo, etc. My husband and I like having the extra space with the kids.

While there is a lot of information available online about points/miles accumulating/spending, I'm having a hard time finding advice and info that's more geared to families. Thanks!

Yoshi212

Well there is an upside to your AirBNB/VRBO bookings. You can use them to meet the minimum spending to get the signup bonuses.
From there you can hope to use those points towards say 2-3 rt tickets for the family and then use any remaining points to reduce or fully pay for the 1-2 tickets you have to pay in cash. Redemption via the Chase UR Travel Portal starts at ~1.25cents per point and with the CSR goes up to ~1.5c/p. So you'd transfer the points needed for your award redemptions via an airline program, complete said award booking and then use remaining or possibly another programs points to purchase the others via their travel portal.

As your travel isn't until Fall 2018 be sure to apply for the card(s) to allow the windows to include the booking times for the AirBNB rentals.

Mwenenzi

The main ways to accumulate miles/points is
- flying
- ff miles on ffp partners like hotels, rental cars and the like
- credit card spend and transfer to a ffp or use directly to "buy" flights on the credit card portal.
Reads as if you are not a frequent flyer but may be a frequent spender

Award flights using BA avios may have a significant cash co-payment. (award surcharge)
Frequent flyer miles are not always equal to earn or burn, but many do transfer from credit cards at the same rate


Credit card transfer links
Credit, Debit and Prepaid Card Programs forum
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...l-program.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chase...tc-2017-a.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chase...mes-rules.html Old closed thread
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/citi-...-partners.html

Freq Flyer Award assistance tools
Use at your own risk. (These are not recommendations)
These links give a guide of ff miles needed. These may not be up to date.
Availability is from the airline ffp web sites/phone.
Award flights are never guaranteed. You need to be flexible with date and route.
Depending on the airline and/or ffp awards can start to become available 355/330 days out . Awards can be released any time from the 355/330 days to closer to departure.
Frequent flyer miles/points are not equal to or burn. They are not 1 to 1
If a multi segment award check the rules/cost carefully. With some ffp’s it can be 2 or more awards or cost more ff miles/points than a direct flight.
If the award is on partner airline it may cost more miles/points than an award on the ffp airline.
Some awards/airlines/routes can have cash surcharges, in addition to real taxes.
Real taxes/regulatory fees are the same for all airlines on the same route/class.
Some carrier imposed surcharges can trigger additional real taxes when the flight changes from non-revenue to revenue.
-AwardAce: Compare Award Redemptions Across Airlines In Seconds --> http://www.awardace.com/ Has surcharge indication
-Economical Excursionist's Tools to compare Frequent Flyer Mile Redemptions --> http://www.flyermiler.com/
-http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...ast-miles.html --> http://www.awardhacker.com/