Award travel to HNL
 

Hello all...working on some award travel to HNL this summer. Now that AS is out of the picture are there any other airlines I should be checking that I can use my skymiles? They can only be used inter-island on HA right?

Any particular reason you're not wanting to travel on DL? We got CMH-ATL (rerouted to DTW)-HNL-DTW-CMH a few years ago for something absurd like 20,000 per person, round trip for travel in August.

You mean they can't be used on AA or UA?

Those mean airlines. They should let you book on their competitors. It's anti-consumer to require you fly only them and their select partners. :)

HA flights can only be used for inter-island travel with DL miles - yes. You would also need to construct the online award redemption as Multi-city, like DL ATL-HNL + HA HNL-ITO.

Flying from MCO to HNL (and return) our preferred route is MCO to ATL and then catch the A330 non-stop. Not sure how much that would cost in sky miles though.

Haven't been able to find anything less than 45k each way on dates that work for the hotel we are staying at.

You guys are so funny. I'm not talking about UA or AA, I'm talking about DL partners that others have had good experience with that fly to HNL.

When Alaska goes away as a redemption partner your universe of choices will be Delta-operated only from US-49 to Hawaii.

Try KE. But it will be two awards and a really long flight.

Where is your final destination?

I guess this is really the answer to the question. That's kind of what I thought. I looked at AF but all of their flights are DL operated.

Guess I'm just going to have to suck it up.

HNL

Not really clear if you are just looking to avoid DL metal for some reason or simply trying to save on miles. Searching on AF isn't going to really tell you anything. Even if they allowed booking AS flights with FlyingBlue miles, that's not going to help you with Skymiles.

Like many destinations, HNL has a high degree of seasonality with one of those peaks being in the summer. Particularly, from 6/15 - 8/15 which corresponds with summer break for many schools. If you are booking in this period, prices will be high (for both revenue and award flights). There are definitely flights cheaper than 90K RT -- particularly if you are able to book mid-week to mid-week. If you have the option of changing your hotel nights, you might want to use the Delta flexible dates award calendar to search for cheaper travel dates.

Right now, the lowest pricing for coach appears to be 22.5K each way -- 45K RT. You can find those for travel after the peak in later August after the 15th. I suspect the poster above who found options for 20K each way was probably booking in later August after the summer travel peak.

If you're flying into HNL your best option is likely staying on delta metal. If you have specific days already picked out for a hotel then the ticket prices are what they are. It's usually best to do the flight first with points then the hotel.