Mr. S

We have an upcoming vacation to Kauai, and as part of our return trip to New York we’d like to incorporate a day trip to Honolulu. Ideally, we’d fly from Lihue to Honolulu in the morning, get a rental car and spend the day exploring, and catch our flight home late that afternoon or evening.

It’s worth mentioning that we’ll be traveling with kids and a fair amount of luggage – so we don't want to lug it around with us all day. We also don’t want to overnight in Honolulu – because that would entail a lot of extra effort lugging our stuff and checking into/out of another hotel.

In our ideal world, we’d go to the Lihue airport in the morning and check our baggage all the way through to New York. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem possible.....unless I'm missing something?

From a ticketing perspective, we were hoping to use miles – and there are 2 good options from HNL to New York on our day of travel:

1) Hawaiian nonstop to JFK – available for 20K/person

What’s interesting about Hawaiian is that saver availability is also available from Lihue to HNL for 7,500 one-way. However, Hawaiian’s system won’t let you piece the 2 flights together into a single itinerary (LIH to HNL to JFK). When you try to book LIH to JFK on our day of travel it comes up as 60K points. Technically, there’s nothing stopping us from buying separate tickets (1) LIH to HNL for 7,500 (2) HNL to JFK for 20,000. The frustrating thing about Hawaiian (based on what they told me via the 800 number) is that they won’t check your luggage all the way through to New York, if our HNL layover is longer than 4 hours.

2) Delta seasonal nonstop to JFK – available for 17.5K Air France points

Again, we could buy one-way tickets from LIH to HNL with 7,500 Hawaiian points, but we’d seem to have the same luggage issue. My understanding is that Delta’s HNL counter opens at 11 am and that they generally don’t let you check luggage more than 4 hours in advance.

I read that there’s a bag check in HNL – for around $12-$15/bag. Has anybody used that?

At the moment, this seems to be our best option….though it’s not quite as hassle-free as checking our bags straight-through from Lihue to New York. We’d also rack up a bunch of fees:

1) Checked luggage LIH to HNL
2) HNL Airport Baggage Check
3) Checked luggage HNL to JFK

I’m curious if anyone has encountered this situation before and/or if you have any suggestions.

Thanks in advance for your help.

747FC

There is a bag check in HNL, and it is located in the baggage level in the International Terminal. So, if you are using HA to fly to the Mainland, you will have to shlep your bags back and forth from the Interisland Terminal (where HA interisland arrival and your JFK checkin is) to the baggage storage place in the International terminal.

One thing you should not do is place your luggage in the back of a van or car and drive around all day with it. There are predators everywhere, including Hawaii, and some like to prey on tourists at tourist spots.

inlanikai

Good advice! Let me add to try not be seen moving luggage, backpacks, bags, etc. from the cabin of the car to the trunk once you arrive and park at a tourist attraction or restaurant. There may be someone watching.

HALOGG

The baggage storage is located in Terminal 2 next to baggage carousel 18. It also happens to be right across the street from where the temporary consolidated rental car location is in the parking garage.