This is a tough one.

I’m trying to figure out how to get a family to Hawaii around Christmas time.

I have access to just about every airline’s frequent flyer miles, but have not found any FF reward seats (we’re looking for a combination of coach and first class seats) on any airline after the 17th of December unless I use “standard rewards” (euphemism for “give us double the miles we usually sell the seat for”).

We’d also pay a reasonable amount for the seats, but they are also being sold for high premiums.

Can anyone offer any creative suggestions how to tackle this without blowing through a zillion miles (such as redeeming rewards on some random international airline that flies between the mainland and Hawaii and has excess capacity for rewards because it can’t sell the seats to Americans or a way to acquire companion seats for free using a coupon or credit card I haven’t thought of). Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Not really so tough, It is the end of September and you are looking for cheap awards/revenue flights to HI during one of the busiest travel times of the year.

Have you thought of Mexico or the Caribbean?

This probably is not what you want to hear, but free tickets to Hawaii are about gone by June 1 for first class. I think (but am not positive) "saver" type awards on all airlines and their respective partners are usually blacked out around the holidays for FF awards to Hawaii (as well as Mex and the Carib) for a reason...the airlines plan to, and usually do, sell all the seats they want to. Why would the little darlings just give 'em away unless they can extract the max miles for them?

I booked SEA-HNL-SEA on an award ticket for Dec 23-28 in May in 1st class on HA, and even that early, was not able to get direct routing or the dates and flight times I wanted...and it still cost me 80K miles. The weird thing is, the Doubletree Alana Waikiki is available at a reduced "Point Stretcher" freebie rate of 39,000 HH points for 3 nights.

Maybe that's a decent angle...if you can get a fair deal on coach tickets and upgrade them, also getting your hotel for points?

Swim this year

Plan ahead next year

Most airlines offer "anytime" awards for more miles than the "saver" awards. ANytime awards are essentially Y class bookings in coach - if there are any seats available, you can get them - and are usually about the same # of miles as the saver awards in 1st. So if this is really important, just ask for anytime awards if the savers aren't available.

In addition, on UA, an anytime award gets you a seat in Economy plus section, even if you are not Premier.

Just today I booked two tickets from San Francisco to Honolulu for Dec 21-29. I had to use the standard awards--no saver awards were available. I did opt for coach and managed to snare some really good economy plus seats. My 120,000 miles got two coach tickets that would have cost $2,400. I could have found decent connections on American or aloha for about $1,800.

I think your chances of getting award seats are pretty dismal, but you can probably get to HNL for about $700 to $800 each from the East Coast. Last year, I found round-trip tickets on Expedia.com for $650. Right now tickets to Hawaii on American and all the other major carriers are ridiculous. So you may want to try a consolidator, especially those based in Hawaii as prices can be had for about $5-$600. Or you can try waiting until mid-October, when ticket prices to Hawaii usually come down.

Swim

Forget the Caribbean too unless you can leave before the 18th and return second week in January.

I don't know where you are located, but you might check out Pleasant Hawaiian Holidays. They have good package deals including hotels, or airfare only from a number of cities. I'm sure they are higher during Christmas, but still probably less than the majors. No miles, but it may be worth it.

It's hard to make specific recomendations since we don't know where you are coming from and which island(s) you need to get to, but you might try using Travelocity's fare-finder (go to flights, enter city pairs, and check off the box at 'my dates are flexible .. show me the lowest fares for' and fill in December - January.)

Right now, Hawaiian Airlines and ATA are showing fares less than $500 from SFO to Maui. This doesn't mean that those fares are available on the dates you want to travel, but this will give you an idea of what's currently available. UA and AA's cheapest fares showed up in the $800+ range, which is unreasonably high.

One of the majors will eventually blink and announce sale fares for periods that include the holidays, and then the rest will follow. The only variable is when this will happen, and if you happen to call in time to get the flights and fares you want.

-David


[This message has been edited by LIH Prem (edited 09-30-2002).]

E-mail me directly and I may be able to help you with transferable "Compensation Certificates" from ATA that have no black out dates and wide availability. But make sure you give the routing you want (including which island in Hawaii you want).

[email protected]
Los Angeles

Been there, done that.

Spackman,

You'll have to have patience to do it. Not sure where you are coming from? For me, starting on the East Coast made it much easier since you can look through many different routes to get there.

The difficult part it getting over the water, so think of all the potential starting places for the FF programs that you have access too and then all the potential destination cities (hint: Honolulu is not the only airport in Hawaii).

Sounds like one of your main challenges may be the multiple seats it sounds like you will need.

I've used AMEX Membership Miles point transfers to gain access to rarely-used FF accounts (e.g., Hawaiian Airlines -- BTW, they are very nice and will take the time to look through multiple dates, multiple originating and destination cities).

Know up front that you will likely encounter many FF desks who laugh in your face or who are rude about aiding in your search for seats... and this will definitely take you time, but if you are persistent there is always a way.

You may be foolish to wait very long to pay the standard points rate, especially if your looking for a bunch of tickets. The clock is NOT in your favor.

Travel backwards in time and book 331 days out.

This year, you are pretty much hosed unless you want to play Award Redemption Chicken or get fleeced for 2x miles.

You could also look to a consolidator/tour operator, but you may find yourself on Bob's Pretty Good Airline across the Pacific.

There is hope...last year I was in same situation wife, 2 boys, nanny to maui...called 2nd week of October and snagged 5 F/C SFO - Maui..inventory always changing but you never know.