Originally Posted by cblaisd
There is a very interesting ambiguity about the new interisland award level requirements. The chart says that it is indeed 10K for an interisland ticket, but notes that the chart is only good for UA/UAX/Ted flights.
Aloha is neither a UAX carrier nor Star Alliance, so maybe awards with them will stay at 5K
By the way, for those searching for interisland award reservations, remember to ask the UA partner awards desk to check not only Aloha but IslandAir too. They are two separate airlines and the CSR will typically only check Aloha.
There is lots and lots of discussion of the issues related to the current fare war in the Hawaii-based airlines forum here on FT.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was successful in booking KOA-OGG-KOA award seats last week. I had a very good 1K CSR from the Honolulu center who was a great help on several aspects of my itinerary (upgrades, fare change vouchers, awards, etc.). She told me that the 5,000 mile award was not applicable to Aloha flights that are actually codeshares with Island. I didn't really question her on it; she seemed pretty confident in her knowledge of this distinction.
As has been said in other threads, the Honolulu call center really seems to have the best collection of CSRs in the system. Whenever possible I will wait until the end of the day in L.A. to call the 1K desk in order to get the Honolulu center. It stands to reason that they would be the most familiar with interisland award possibilities too.