jimoney

i'll be moving to oahu early next year and am wondering if i should change allegiance from nwa(delta) to any other program. i will be flying mostly to la and san diego (family lives there) and once in a while japan. should i stay with delta?

thanks in advance
oh do the other airlines offer free upgrade to fc from hawaii? i know nwa does not have free upgrade to/from hawaii.

FlyinHawaiian

I'm going to move this question to our "sister" forum, the Hawaii (Travel) Forum, as we will be discussing airlines outside of Hawaiian (which is the only Hawaii-based airline with scheduled Mainland U.S. service).

I am a United flyer to/from the West Coast; I find their flight schedules and frequencies to be convenient. I'm not too thrilled with some of the equipment UA uses (757 and 767 from LAX) but Economy Plus helps if you have elite status. UA does not offer "free" upgrades to F for elites.

FlyinHawaiian, Co-Moderator
Hawaii-based Airlines Forum

JPat

It is possible to get a free UG on AS for trips to the Hawaiian Islands if you are an MVP or GMVP in the FF program of Alaska Airlines (AS). There might also be other FF programs affiliated with AS where elite travelers can get UGs on AS metal,

I would check their website at AS for details about their program and than compare it to your current program.

If you are an elite level flyer you might want to consider getting AS to do a status match into their FF program.

If you weren't heading to San Diego from the Islands I would say switching to AS is a no brainer...

jimoney

good to know. thanks. what airline would u recommend then?

slippahs

I think that really depends on where you'll be flying out of HNL. If you want a really strong Asia network and still want a domestic carrier as your preferred choice, you'll have to stick with NW or deflect to UA. If you'll be choosing the West Coast as your primary destinations, then it's UA/AA (if it'll be mostly SFO and LAX), NW (for LAX/SEA/SFO/PDX), or HA (which serves really any major airport on the West Coast + LAS/PHX).

If it's the east coast, HA won't work too well there, but NW/CO/UA/AA/US all work.

Looks like it'll be LAX/SAN and Japan. So your options are rather limited here. UA does all three (UA has a N/S to SAN, if it hasn't been canceled, but it has an infrequent schedule--once/twice a week). But UA also recently dropped KIX if your travels were to take you to Southern Japan. NW does LAX, NRT, and KIX.

:mod hat on:

Let's also move this thread to the Hawaii forum, since it deals with all programs for a Hawaii-based flyer, rather than just simply the WorldPerks program.

-slippahs, NW forum co-moderator

ILuvParis

AA gets you to LA pretty easily and their One World partner JAL has quite a few daily flights to Japan.

1KHI

If you can earn EXP on AA, then SWU are a good option to upgrade (I think UA has something similar but rather limiting).

Other than that, there is no really a good option for upgrades to/from HI if NWA discontinues the HI resident program.

ILuvParis

SWU are an option, but I've never had to use them to be upgraded on AA to Hawaii. Being EXP almost guarantees a complimentary upgrade on routes to Hawaii and chances are good with 500 mile upgrades if you have them. At least that's my experience with several years of travel to Hawaii (4-6 times per year).

beckoa

I actually would not be completely surprised if AS were to offer this route in the future...

AQ used to run it on its 73G's and its not quite the cutthroat competition ex-LAX...

Biggest issue for AS IIRC is the same as SNA... (kinda funny since similar names) is the flights would be weight restricted... and since they need a lot o' Avgas to make it... they'd have to reduce seating (thanks to noise rules @ these NIMBY airports) - unless AS were to acquire ETOPS 73G's... but then again, 73H has a lower CASM... thus theoretically more profitable...

If that were to happen... it'd be great for the OP

ILuvParis

If I were not somewhat familiar with flying, I would wonder what language this is. As it is, a lot of this is Greek to me. Let's hope the op fares better than I do.

RealHJ

I have exactly the same question. CO seems not much better, as it's very pricey ($500 one-way + miles from normal fares, which just pushes it up to first class fare anyway effectively).. I travel HNL - DCA a few times a year and now can't see any other airline that would have good free upgrades to actual completely flat (doesn't matter if slightly angled) sleeper seats business class comparable to NWA (even CO flights to IAH and EWR seem to have a worse business/1st class and not up to NW standards, not even lie flat seats it seems - or am I wrong?)

slippahs

CO's BF seats are not lie flat, but I prefer them to the WBC pod seating, which gives you the sensation that you're slipping down the seat and prefer to sleep in them in the half-reclined mode.

As for NW continuing the res upgrades. I'd be surprised if they did. DL offered a similar type of cert before but withdrew them after a few years. If you're going to be making top tier elite on an airline, you're probably best off going with AA and try your chances with an EXP upgrade through DFW (or the newly restored ORD flights), which should feature nearly lie flat seating.

RealHJ

Thanks... I'll check out AA (though again no good routes on AA HNL-SEA and DCA-SEA, two of the three routes on top of HNL-DCA that I need good routing on: the three most frequent routes I fly..ah but AS is still with AA, while no more with CO, so that makes up for that).

As for the seats, for me I find WBC far superior to any seats that are not completely flat. Being a side sleeper, any seat that is not completely flat I just can not, no matter how hard I try, fall asleep on. While the NWA WBC seats I can truly fall asleep on (as it's flat and can comfortably sleep on the side, though yes a bit of "slipping" motion is there at first), and actually that is just what I am "prescribed" by a doctor (I am told that at home also I should make my bed angled like that... but I won't go into that here).

slippahs

To each their own re: the seats. You'll come to find that there is a wide variety of opinions here on whether NW seating is better than CO's and vice versa. One thing's for sure, DL has ruined the ex-HNL NW longhauls...

RealHJ

No doubt about that. The awful chicken that tastes like just dead chicken microwaved (without any seasoning or anything) that is passed as a 1st class meal.... ugh. (Well, at least the feathers are plucked off: tastes just like chicken after boiled and feathers plucked off, and then they just heat it up like that.)

Many non-US airlines have far better food in coach (e.g. South African Airlines as I experienced last month) than DL has in 1st/business int'l routes ("BusinessElite" that has nothing Elite about it).