If DL is charging 65k you've got no chance of using your HA miles for those DL tickets.

mknoebel:

I think your plan of sticking with UA miles is fine. To accumulate more, take AlohaDaveKennedy's suggestion. You may also want to consider accumulating AA miles as they fly to Hawaii and also partner with HA and AS.

BA miles can work very well for hawaii too, take a look at the BA card offers from Chase. Its 25k round trip from the west coast (LA, San francisco) to hawaii, you could use chase ultimate rewards points transferred to southwest to get from denver to one of those cities. Could work out better than 45k round trip if you get a good southwest price.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...nt-credit.html

If you and your spouse qualify for the Alaska Airlines Visa Signature Card, you will get a $99 (+ taxes) companion fare for each card. AS has flights from DEN connection in SEA to the islands. The card is $75.

Obviously, but since the OP did not provide exact dates, I could only do a dummy booking on DL guessing on dates. The dates I put in returned 65K redemptions.

If the OP can make the spending requirements, especially as AlohaDaveKennedy suggests, Chase cards make sense. I've noticed, however, that a lot of newbies are a little less willing to accept "creativity" in funding credit card spending requirements than more experienced FTers. In addition, Chase will probably not allow him and his wife to get all the cards he may need at one time (depending on their creditworthiness), meaning that he may have to slide back his trip timetable. That may not be a problem, but I wasn't willing to assume too much flexibility on that.

OP, in order to redeem Hawaiian with partners, you have to call the HawaiianMiles Service Center toll free at 1-877-HA-MILES (426-4537) Mon-Fri 8-4 P.M. Hawaii time. Booking online is reserved for flights on Hawaiian metal.

Oh, this looks nice! I'm reading through the thread to see if I will qualify for this card (I have the old version of the Chase United Miles card, but not the Explorer)

$.02 here

BA is way to finicky to try to land all the seats, especially if there is a fixed timeframe. Chase UR to SWA miles + (BoA Hawaiian Card + BoH Hawaiian Card to Hawaiian miles) is doable but the transfer at Vegas or LAX is a marathon distance apart and might be hard with a multiparty trip.

We are in HI now for 24 nights (3 islands) booked entirely using miles/points except for 5 nights in a rental condo ( we are here now).

Flew JFK - lax (stop 2 nights) - HNL using BA miles for AA flights. We had to split up (1 parent + 1 child per flight) even booking 11 months ago.

Hotels are:

Jw Marriott ihilani (it was amazing!!!!) - 5 nights for 120k - upgraded to deluxe ocean view for free

Embassy Suites Waikiki - using AA miles (upgraded to 2 bd 2 ba ocean view on top floor for free) 3 nights

Condo (in Princeville Kauai) 5 nights paid about $1300

Grand Hyatt kauai - 4 nights in suite upgrade (got diamond challenge before applying for CC, free nights in suite)

Fairmont kea lani - using 2 free nights from CC

Honua Kai Maui 1 bedroom condo - 5 nights using AA miles

For inter island flights we used Hawaiian miles.

Our goal was to spend as little $ as possible in order to make it a long trip & spend money on excursions, etc.

Best trip ever so far!!!

Haven't gotten to Maui part of the trip yet, but flying home OGG - lax (6 night stopover to visit family) - JFK

Wow, that's great jandmmom!! Great use of mile I think!! Enjoy the rest of your time on the Islands!!

I have applied for the new United MilesPlus Explorer card for 65K miles. I got a "we have to review this" message, so I'm guessing I will not get it because I already have the older Chase United Visa card. So now I'm waiting for some miles to show up in my wife's account (we did a MilesPlus dining - any idea how long those take to post?) After she gets miles I am going to apply for a card in her name.

Thanks again for the ideas!

I can ask this over on the American board if I need to, but I just got an email from American that my family's miles will expire at the end of this year. If I combine all of them with what I have, it would be close to a free ticket also. Is there any way to transfer miles for free? I saw on their website that you can transfer miles but it would cost around $100 from each of them.

We have stayed at the Mana Kai on Maui - condo - 2 bedroom directly on beach several times and loved it. great location and snorkeling in front of condo. They have 1 and 2 bedroom condos that can be rented from a few vacation companies OR check out VRBO.com and rent direct from owners. Location can not be beat. The front units do not have a/c - which at first I thought we needed. But we never did and had great ocean breezes to cool us. great for a small family.

How flexible are you with your budget for this trip. Ask yourself how much do I want to spend out of pocket. Me and wife normally settle for about 30 to 50% out of pocket. My suggestion, stick with United and try to accummulate 80K miles, then you and your wife try to apply for either a Chase Sapphire or the Citibank Thank You Premiere card, that have at least a 40K or 50K as a signup bonus. These points are worth 25% to 33% more when redeeming for airfare. The reason why I say this is because trying to redeem United miles for 4 people on one flight will kind of tough, not impossible but tough. But redeeming UA miles for two tickets and using your Chase or Citibank points to buy the other two tickets will guarantee all 4 of you will travel together on the same flight. And UA has pretty good availability to Hawaii. Better than Delta or American IMHO. Flights to Hawaii in the spring are going for about $650 right now. So 50K Sapphire or Citibank points will cover most if not all of that cost. Me and wife are going to Cancun this fall and using a combination of United miles, Citibank Thank You points, AMEX MR points, and Cap1 Miles. We are going to save approximatly $1600 on a $2600 10-day trip at an all-inclusive including a car rental. And we will still have enough points/miles leftover to take several more trips over the next couple of years.

if you add any miles to the account it will extend the life 18 months from last activity. you can use the shopping portal or aa idine to add some points ot each account for small purchases you would have made anyways

We live in Colorado as well and also travel to Maui 2x per year. I would suggest the following:


[*]Establish an Aeroplan (Air Canada account for you and your wife)[*]Each of you apply for the latest AMEX Platinum card which has a 50,000 Membership rewards bonus for $3K spend in 3 months. (100,000)[*]Each of you apply for the AMEX Gold card which has a 25,000 MR point bonus for $2K spend in 3 months. (50,000)

If successful with the above you can transfer AMEX MR points to Aeroplan which is a United partner via Star Alliance. Air Canada only requires 45,000 points per coach ticket from DEN-OGG on the same United flights.

Book 2 RT tickets for your self and another using Aeroplan (90,000 Points)
Book 2 One way for the other two family members using Aeroplan (45,000)
Book 2 One way for the return flight for two using the United points (60,000)

Each of you apply for the Hilton cards from:

• American Express 60,000 each (120,000)
• Citibank 50,000 each (100,000)
• Bank of America Virgin Card (up to 70,000 each) if you transfer to HHonors
• Bank of Hawaii Hawaiian Air (70,000 each)

This would be around 720,000 Hilton Honors points - good for 12 nights at the Grand Wailea or two rooms for 6 nights at the Grand Wailea.

Good Luck

I know this might not be the option you were considering, but this is what we do..

Last year we flew AA one way and United back using miles. We have 3 people and it was hard to find 3 "milesaver" type fares in the summer with kids.

This year I decided to make a stop over on the west coast. Might not be your first choice, but I was able to sign up and get Hawaiian miles and also Alaska miles. I also signed up for a Southwest card for the bonus. We live in San Antonio and Hawaiian and Alaska do not service our area.

So we flew for free to the west coast, stayed overnight using points, got up the next morning and flew Alaska to Hawaii. (we actually used my hubbys AA miles for the Alaska flight). So it was 40K Alaska miles (which I got free for getting the card). And 22.5 AA miles or the flight....

On the way back I used 52.5K miles for 3 one way tickets back to San Fran. I got these miles by signing up for the Hawaiian card along with my husband. Had extra for our interisland flights...

I used miles from Southwest to get from the west coast back to Texas. You can get these either from getting a Southwest card or a Sapphire Preferred 50K bonus and transferring them....

Just some creative ideas... I also like taking a mid day flight back from Hawaii versus a red eye. Last year we flew Maui to Denver red eye and hated it. This year our trip was so much nicer with a stop over on the west coast, especially with kids!!!! We actually spent 2 days in San Francisco on the way back just to break up the trip!