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I’ve been writing about Alaska’s Hawaiian acquisition and how to potentially stack up a ton of Alaska miles by way of Hawaiian cards and transfer. Well, it turns out that the speculative transfer I made from Bilt to Hawaiian last year, and Amex to Hawaiian in August will turn into a stockpile of very valuable Alaska miles. I also just applied for the 70k Hawaiian card offer after a single purchase. Why?
A couple weeks back the DOJ approved the acquisition ( all but assuring it would go through ), and we were waiting for a rubber stamp from the DOT. Surprise, surprise, the DOT had a few requirements of their own and it’s one that is great if you’re mileage fiends like us. The new airline maintain the individually established brands, but allow status matching, mileage transfer 1:1, and more. Let’s take a look
- Protecting the value of rewards: Alaska and Hawaiian agreed to the first-ever rewards protections against devaluation that ensure that consumers will receive the rewards, benefits, and status they have earned. Specific rewards protections include:
- No expiration for miles earned under current programs: All HawaiianMiles miles and Alaska Mileage Plan miles earned prior to conversion into the new combined loyalty program must not expire.
- Transfer miles at 1:1 ratio: Rewards members can transfer HawaiianMiles miles to and from Alaska Mileage Plan miles at a 1:1 ratio prior to the launch of the new combined loyalty program. Each outstanding HawaiianMiles and Alaska Mileage Plan mile must be converted into a mile in the new loyalty program at a 1:1 ratio, resulting in all members having the same number of miles before and after conversion.
- Maintain value of miles: The combined airline must not take any actions that would devalue HawaiianMiles miles, must maintain the value of each unredeemed HawaiianMiles mile earned prior to the merger closing, must honor all active HawaiianMiles promotions from prior to the merger closing, and must continue to award HawaiianMiles miles at the same or greater value. The combined airline must maintain a minimum dollar value for all miles in the new loyalty program, measured by the guest-facing value of miles redeemed for carrier-operated flights.
- Match, maintain, or increase status: Under the new combined loyalty program, the combined airline must match and maintain the equivalent status levels that HawaiianMiles members hold under the HawaiianMiles program, match and maintain status levels and conferred benefits that are equivalent to Alaska’s Mileage Plan program, and match or increase status and conferred benefits as necessary to ensure members of each existing loyalty program are treated no less favorably relative to status, including by matching or increasing members’ elite status in the new combined loyalty program, for the remainder of the applicable program year.
- No new junk fees: The combined airline must not impose change or cancellation fees on rewards redemption tickets for travel on carrier-operated flights.
- No expiration for miles earned under current programs: All HawaiianMiles miles and Alaska Mileage Plan miles earned prior to conversion into the new combined loyalty program must not expire.
- Maintaining critical inter-island and continental routes: Hawaii’s rural island communities are uniquely dependent on the passenger and cargo services provided by Hawaiian Airlines. The combined airline must maintain robust levels of service for critical Hawaiian inter-island passenger and cargo service and for the key routes between Hawaii and the continental United States at risk of a loss of competition.
- Preserving support for essential air service in Alaska and Hawaii: The combined airline must preserve its support for Essential Air Service in Alaska’s and Hawaii’s small, rural communities where such service is a lifeline to health care, education, and economic well-being.
- Ensuring competitive access to Honolulu hub airport: The combined airline is barred from directly or indirectly taking actions that would discriminate against new airline entrants or smaller competitors’ access to airport infrastructure as part of new or existing investments at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu, a key vacation destination and hub for the State of Hawaii.
- Guaranteeing fee-free family seating: Hawaiian Airlines must join Alaska Airlines in guaranteeing adjacent seats for children 13 or under and an accompanying adult at no additional cost for all fare types.
- Providing alternative compensation for delays and cancellations caused by the airline: Hawaiian Airlines must join Alaska Airlines in providing a travel credit or frequent flyer miles when, due to circumstances within the control of either airline, a flight is cancelled and they wait three hours or more for a new flight, or a flight is delayed by three hours or more from the scheduled departure time.
- Lowering costs for service members and their families: The two airlines must lower costs for the nation’s military and their families, a significant population in both Alaska and Hawaii, by waiving certain fees. Both airlines will update their customer service plans to provide at least one free standard carry-on and at least two free standard checked bags for service members and their accompanying spouse and children. They will also waive change fees for service members and their families who reschedule flights due to a military order or directive.
And that’s what they got. The biggest and best part of this merger is the seamless miles transfer under combined loyalty. Currently, Alaska only has cards with BofA, but now that miles can go between accounts, you can add Hawaiian cards to your wallet as well and redeem on Alaska via a transfer
This gets even more interesting when you look at the benefits of the Hawaiian card that allow for moving points between friends and family accounts.
And here you can see…later this month (September ) you will be able to transfer between programs. See down below for how you can move between Alaska accounts because of this.
The 70k Hawaiian card offer allows for the ability to move between member accounts. This offer, which requires just a single purchase to trigger the bonus, has been available for quite some time and I was just approved.
As you can see under the benefits – share miles with family or friends without a fee.
With the new merger is could be possible to move or combine Hawaiian and Alaska miles between accounts – who knows if this will be honored once the dust settles, but the opportunity is there currently,
For instance, my wife could have Alaska miles, transfer them to her Hawaiian account, and because I have the Hawaiian credit card she could merge into my Hawaiian account, then I could combine them into my Alaska account thus moving from Alaska to Alaska. Pretty neat.
Overall
I’m a fan of this merger and happy I speculatively transferred points and signed up for a Hawaiian card.
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
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