FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Best usage of points to Hawaii advice

Dec 25, 2012 | 9:22 am

#5

duranza

Join Date: Jul 2003

Location: Wine Country, Finger Lakes

Programs: LFFRS BOD

Posts: 1,356

Ok now I have more questions if you don't mind.. newbie here with booking terms.
I have never selected a flight in a specific fare.. I just booked the cheapest. So don't know what Y or J means.

Our goal is to save money so I won't be purchasing any of the flights.

We will be stopping over at SFO for 3 days then fly to Maui for 8 days then take an interisland flight to Kona and fly out of Hilo after exploring the island 7 days.
We won't be going to HNL.

Leaving from Roc not EWR.

Not interested in flying to Asia but Europe maybe a couple of years down the road.

We do have a ballpark of dates so looking at Jan 10th to 13th in SFO then returning home around the Jan 28th again looking for saver award but now since the return flight is so long I have looked at the mixed cabins flights which 2 of the return legs are in first and the last ( short distance) is in economy

OK see I didn't know that early flights were cheaper... guess I will look at the cost first of the flights then see what they are in miles.

We are only going with United since we both now have the United Explorer and that has given us the miles we need plus the ones that Chase Prefered has also.

Or do you mean I can use the miles from United to use with AA?

thanks for your help ^

Quote:

Originally Posted by QBK

Okay, that helps clarify. Let me try to help in return.

1. Yes, the pricing you are seeing is the standard pricing for United saver award flights from North America to Hawaii. Standard domestic is 12.5K each way in economy, 25K in (domestic) first; Hawaii is 20K in economy, 40K in first.

2. This may or may not be a "good" use of miles. Check the fare for a $ ticket. I can't tell whether you are looking at doing one direction in F because you want it, or because Y isn't available. If it's the latter, and you don't care about flying in F, then you should compare the 60K miles you'll use to whatever you would pay for a ticket in Y. If it's only $600, then I'd buy the ticket instead. If it's $1200, then this is a pretty good use of miles. Keep in mind that 60-65K miles will get you a round trip to Europe or Asia with a stopover... if you're into that sort of thing.

3. The goal is to get yourself to your destination as comfortably as possible. Flyertalkers sometimes get obsessed with optimizing the onboard experience ("I got SQ first class!!!") at the cost of other factors ("but I leave at 3am with connections in Moscow and Ethiopia..."). Domestic F is certainly better than Y, but a good itinerary (no early morning departure, convenient connections, etc) can be worth more. Optimize around YOUR personal preferences.

4. That said, there is a big difference between standard domestic F recliner seats and the lie-flat international product that UA flies to Hawaii from certain hubs. I believe EWR, IAD, and IAH to/from HNL are consistently operated with BusinessFirst seats. If I was going to pay the premium for a domestic F award, I would try to get one of those flights.

5. The 777 service from SFO is occasionally operated by an international plane with lie-flat seats in business class, and you can also book the true First cabin n those flights for 50K miles. There are a couple of posts on blogs about how to book 3-cabin first from NYC to HNL by booking the P.S. flight from JFK to SFO and connecting to a 3-class 777 from SFO-HNL. If you have specific dates, this is unlikely to work for you (unless you get lucky).

6. Since you aren't trying to do anything complicated like a stopover, you can just book separate one-way tix for each direction. So if you don't want to fly Unitd both ways, you don't have to -- you could book United one way and American the other, for example -- and there is no mileage penalty for booking one-ways.

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