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130K AA miles enough for business class award to / from Hawaii?

130K AA miles enough for business class award to / from Hawaii?

Old Oct 6, 2019, 11:51 am
  #1  
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130K AA miles enough for business class award to / from Hawaii?

I used to travel AA for business and recently have switched to a different airline. I have 130K miles with AA and don't want them to go to waste so was thinking about taking the wife on a trip to Hawaii (don't know which islands).

Anyone have experience with using their points for Hawaii? Business class worth it or no? Just trying to use up my 130K points in the most efficient way.
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Old Oct 6, 2019, 12:01 pm
  #2  
 
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AA flies lie flat business to Hawaii from DFW for 80k if you can find availability. You might be able to do business one-way and economy one way.
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Old Oct 6, 2019, 12:03 pm
  #3  
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Originally Posted by HardHitter
I used to travel AA for business and recently have switched to a different airline. I have 130K miles with AA and don't want them to go to waste so was thinking about taking the wife on a trip to Hawaii (don't know which islands).

Anyone have experience with using their points for Hawaii? Business class worth it or no? Just trying to use up my 130K points in the most efficient way.
Finding low-tier award seats in Business Class to/from Hawaii can be challenging, and 130,000 AA miles would only be enough for one such round-trip ticket, not two. The aa.com website will display award availability on both AA and AS -- although the ability to redeem AA miles for award travel on AS is ending in 2020.

From what city are you starting?

Using AA miles for Business Class travel to near South America (e.g., Ecuador, Peru, or Colombia) would be cheaper.
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Old Oct 6, 2019, 12:06 pm
  #4  
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Originally Posted by OutofToiletPaper
AA flies lie flat business to Hawaii from DFW for 80k if you can find availability. You might be able to do business one-way and economy one way.
A MileSAAver Business Class roundtrip award between the Mainland and Hawaii now costs 110K AA miles. Not sure where you came up with 80K.
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Old Oct 6, 2019, 12:17 pm
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Discount F fares to Hawaii are cheap enough that you'd be better off just buying your tickets. Then you aren't constrained by AA's inconsistent award availability.
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Old Oct 6, 2019, 12:41 pm
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Originally Posted by no1cub17
Discount F fares to Hawaii are cheap enough that you'd be better off just buying your tickets. Then you aren't constrained by AA's inconsistent award availability.
True, but depending from where, Hawaiian Airlines may be the better purchase. Lie flats from LAX on Hawaiian, you have to leave DFW for lie flights on AA.
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Old Oct 6, 2019, 1:44 pm
  #7  
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Can fly out of SJC or SFO
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Old Oct 6, 2019, 2:02 pm
  #8  
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Originally Posted by HardHitter
I used to travel AA for business and recently have switched to a different airline. I have 130K miles with AA and don't want them to go to waste so was thinking about taking the wife on a trip to Hawaii (don't know which islands).

Anyone have experience with using their points for Hawaii? Business class worth it or no? Just trying to use up my 130K points in the most efficient way.
As mentioned above, it will cost you 55k each way, 110k total, for one person in business to Hawaii. Going via DFW on the 772 is on the only way you will get a lie-flat product. Business award availability on the DFW-Hawaii 772 flights is generally very tough to come by.

From the west coast, there are quicker and easier options than backtracking to DFW (from LAX and PHX), however all of these will be on 321's with standard domestic first class recliner type seats. AS also has tons of flights to Hawaii from virtually every large west coast city, but again these will be on 737's with a standard domestic first class. But, business award availability is MUCH easier to come by on these flights. Keep in mind using AA miles for flights on AS will not be an option much longer.

That said, in terms of an efficient use of miles, then west coast to Hawaii for 55k each way in business is a pretty horrible use of miles, IMO. For basically the same amount you can get to Europe (57.5k) or Japan/Korea (60k) in business class.
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Old Oct 6, 2019, 3:21 pm
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Actually, there is lie flat to the islands from DFW to HNL/OGG and seasonally from ORD-HNL and believe that as of right now anyway, PHX has a A330 flying to HNL as well. As others mentioned, sAAver awards on any of those flights is a challenge.

Safe Travels
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Old Oct 6, 2019, 3:29 pm
  #10  
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Another option for the moment (AA chose to end the award possibilities with AS) is to use Alaska Airlines. Though 130,000 AA miles wont get two there in domestic F, AS offers some nonstop Hawaii flights. We used AA miles for SMF-KOA return in August. MileSAAver awards In domestic First.
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Old Oct 6, 2019, 7:14 pm
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Originally Posted by HardHitter
Can fly out of SJC or SFO
Hey HardHitter! Not sure when you are looking to fly, but this is one of those flights I would just pay cash for. Shelling out miles (depending how you value them) could be a far-more expensive option than if you just paid cash. For me, unless it's lie flat, it's not worth using miles.

Considering it's Hawaii, I would set expectations to have a non-favorable mileage redemption. If you're open to just paying up, here is a quick search that I found. (Again I don't know the dates you're traveling so I can't really help there, but I would advise being flexible with travel to HI and recommend flying mid-week.)

Random Date Findings: Tuesday 2/4 - Monday 2/10
Hawaiian Airlines - $1337.52 RT/pp - certainly not the cheapest deal, but pretty good considering you get lie-flat, and it's direct (I've never flown this product, and can't comment on it on that basis, but it is lie-flat)
American - $150 more/pp and you connect via LAX in regular domestic biz seats (non lie-flat)
United - same $ as American, but unlike American, their regular biz lie-flat product is garbage (2-4-2), unless you snag Polaris

I would highly advise against paying 100s-of-thousands of miles to fly to HI. If you can fly for $1338 in lie-flat, essentially that redemption would be 1 cent per mile, which to me is a garbage redemption assuming $130k miles as some posters have alluded to. Save those 100k+ miles for redemptions to Europe in Flagship lie-flat products, or for redemption on BA or another partner airline. (But that's just me.)
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Old Oct 6, 2019, 7:36 pm
  #12  
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Originally Posted by GTITAN
Actually, there is lie flat to the islands from DFW to HNL/OGG and seasonally from ORD-HNL and believe that as of right now anyway, PHX has a A330 flying to HNL as well. As others mentioned, sAAver awards on any of those flights is a challenge.

Safe Travels
I would not fly from SJC/SFO to DFW to get to Hawaii, unless I absolutely had to, or we were back in the day when you could get EQMs based on distance on AA, and I could get quadruple miles
Not worth it to get a lie flat seat from DFW.
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Old Oct 6, 2019, 7:58 pm
  #13  
 
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Originally Posted by mvoight
I would not fly from SJC/SFO to DFW to get to Hawaii, unless I absolutely had to, or we were back in the day when you could get EQMs based on distance on AA, and I could get quadruple miles
Not worth it to get a lie flat seat from DFW.
tes, totally makes sense. Was just pointing out that there was more than DFW for AA lie flat to Hawaii. :-)

Safe Travels
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Old Oct 6, 2019, 8:19 pm
  #14  
 
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Originally Posted by mvoight
I would not fly from SJC/SFO to DFW to get to Hawaii
Especially considering that SFO is the closest major airport in CONUS to the islands.
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Old Oct 6, 2019, 10:03 pm
  #15  
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Originally Posted by guv1976
A MileSAAver Business Class roundtrip award between the Mainland and Hawaii now costs 110K AA miles. Not sure where you came up with 80K.
What a fiasco AA award pricing is now.
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