[Final Hours, Here’s What I Did] Will You Transfer Miles To Hawaiian Before The Bonus Ends Tonight?

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Update, 8/31: I transferred over 500K AMEX points (and a $99 transfer fee) and received my 600K Hawaiian miles. Here’s hoping they turn into 600K Alaska miles by next year!

Here is the expected value formula behind my gamble.

Don’t gamble more than you can afford to lose. I’m sitting on more than 8 million AMEX points, which means that if the gamble fails, it won’t hurt too badly.

The 20% transfer bonus ends tonight at 11:59pm MT.

Update, 8/30: United has made concerns known to the DOT about losing marketing and loyalty agreements it has for interisland flying with Hawaiian. I don’t think the DOT will deny the merger based on those concerns, though it can require those agreements to continue.

Alaska has told DansDeals that they have no comment on the Beat of Hawaii report that Alaska informed them that miles would transfer from Hawaiian at a 1:1 ratio.

We reached out to Beat of Hawaii, which confirmed that a contact at Alaska mentioned several months ago that miles would transfer at a 1:1 ratio, but that word didn’t come from Alaska on the record. The contact did not reconfirm that stance when asked this past week.

Where does that leave us?

• The merger is more than likely to go through, but as noted below, Alaska edited its original press release to state that government review is still ongoing. The Trump DOJ approved the AA-JetBlue alliance before the Biden DOJ successfully challenged it in court, so anything can happen.
• The miles are more than likely to transfer at a 1:1 ratio, but Alaska isn’t saying that on the record.
• A 20% transfer bonus is sweet, but is also risky. The safer bet is to wait until things are more firm. It’s possible that mileage transfers end before then, but there will probably be a heads up before then that transfers are ending. Whether we will know the mileage transfer ratio by that point is anyone’s guess.

With all that being said, I do plan on transferring points to Hawaiian by tomorrow as I think the upside outweighs the risks here, though I won’t transfer as much as I originally planned to.

What will you do?

The AMEX-Hawaiian transfer bonus ends at 11:59pm MT on 8/31.

Update, 8/23: As noted by Gary Leff, Alaska has edited its original press release about the merger. It originally stated that “The time period for the U.S. Department of Justice to complete its regulatory investigation of the proposed combination of Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines under the HSR Act has expired.”

It now states that, “The time period during which the parties were prohibited from closing under the HSR Act has expired. The government’s review is ongoing.“

Ouch.

That will definitely change the calculus on whether to transfer now or wait for more clarity without a 20% bonus.

In other news, Beat of Hawaii writes that Alaska confirmed to them that Hawaiian miles will transfer to Alaska miles at a 1:1 ratio. We have reached out to Alaska multiple times to confirm the same but have only received the original statement that “any miles accrued in Hawaiian Airlines’ loyalty program will be carried into the new program.” We have also reached out to Beat of Hawaii for clarity on what Alaska wrote to them.

For now, I’m still in a holding pattern before deciding what to do. What are your plans?

Originally posted on 8/20:

The Department of Justice surprised everyone today when it cleared the path for Alaska Airlines to acquire Hawaiian Airlines with no strings attached.

That came after the Biden DOJ successfully sued to block JetBlue from having a Northeast Alliance with American that the Trump DOJ had approved, and after the Biden DOJ successfully sued to block JetBlue from acquiring Spirit.

The merger still needs the blessing of the Department of Transportation, but that is expected to clear easily. Hawaiian shareholders have already approved the transaction.

Unlike with most mergers, Alaska will keep the Hawaiian Airlines brand around. However, the combined airline will operate solely under Alaska’s flying certificate and OneWorld Alliance. Alaska has confirmed that the airlines will share a joint loyalty program under one platform and Hawaiian elites will have their status honored by Alaska and OneWorld. The combined company will be managed by Alaska Airlines under current management and the Alaska mileage program will be the surviving one.

Alaska is currently an all-Boeing carrier while Hawaiian has a mixed fleet. While Alaska ditched the Airbus aircraft acquired from its Virgin America acquisition, this fleet is far more extensive and includes widebody planes. Currently, Alaska doesn’t have any widebody aircraft and doesn’t fly outside of North America. I’d expect them to keep the Airbus’ (Airbii?) around and expand long-haul international service from their Seattle hub in addition to the Honolulu hub.

When the merger was announced last year, Alaska said it expected the merger to close between December 2024-June 2025.

This creates a unique opportunity for mileage junkies.

No major bank points transfer to Alaska Airlines. That’s a pity as Alaska has an excellent mileage program that offers outsized value on both domestic and international flights on partner OneWorld airlines like American.

They charge just 4,500 miles in coach and 9,000 miles in first class for domestic flights up to 700 miles in distance, such as NYC to Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, or Toronto, or Newark-Chicago.

They charge just 7,500 miles in coach and 15,000 miles in first class for domestic flights up to 1,400 miles in distance such as Miami to NYC or Dallas. Or fly in Australia and New Zealand for the same rate:

NYC to London is just 22.5K miles in coach or 45K miles in business class with no fuel surcharges on American.

NYC to Morroco is just 27.5K miles in coach or 55K miles in business class:

Those are incredible bargains now that Avios have been so devalued.

You can open a new Alaska Airlines Visa Signature® credit card and you can get Buy One, Get One + 50,000 Bonus Miles! Buy one ticket, get one for just the taxes and fees ($0 fare plus taxes and fees from $23) and get 50,000 bonus miles with this offer. To qualify, make $3,000 or more in purchases within the first 90 days of opening your account.

AMEX, Capital One, Chase, and Citi cards offer the ability to earn anywhere from 1.5-10 points per dollar, but none of those currencies transfer to Alaska.

You can however transfer AMEX points to Hawaiian at a 1:1 ratio. You can rack up points on cards like The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express which earns 2 points per dollar everywhere on up to $50K in annual spending.

In fact, until 8/31 you can get a 20% bonus on transfers to Hawaiian. Best of all, Hawaiian miles never expire.

It’s fair to assume with at least 95% confidence that the Alaska-Hawaiian merger will go through. There is still a non-zero risk of it failing to happen, but the major hurdle has been cleared.

It’s also fair to assume with at least 99% confidence that Hawaiian miles will become Alaska miles at a 1:1 ratio. In the words of Alaska Airlines, “The two airlines’ loyalty programs will be integrated into a single shared loyalty program, and any miles accrued in Hawaiian Airlines’ loyalty program will be carried into the new program.”

I don’t see any plausible way that statement can be twisted to allow Hawaiian miles to be carried over at less than parity. It would alienate the very customers Alaska is acquiring and would surely turn into a costly lawsuit.

The 20% bonus means that 3,750 AMEX points would be enough for a short-haul coach flight on American, or 7,500 AMEX points would pay for first class!

The real question here is will Alaska devalue its points before the merger or soon after a merger? Alaska just made their award chart in March, so it should be a while before they devalue. Airlines rarely devalue in middle of a merger process, so things should be safe for the short-term. On the other hand, Alaska has made devaluations in the past without warning, which does make me wary about pre-emptive transfers.

It’s possible that Alaska will keep Hawaiian’s partnership with AMEX, but it’s far more likely that transfer option will end with the merger. You could try waiting for another bonus to Hawaiian, though the last 20% bonus ended in January 2023, so it’s pretty unlikely that we will see another one before the merger closes.

You can lower your risk by waiting until AMEX announces an end date for transfers to Hawaiian, though you would likely lose out on the 20% bonus option and you risk transfers ending without an announcement. AMEX did provide notice when Continental merged with United, and AMEX transfers to Continental ended 5 months before the end of Continental and the final flight.

I hate making speculative mileage transfers, but I’m going to have to make an exception here.

Sure, it’s a gamble, but the odds of a potential outsized payoff seem to outweigh the risks in this case.

I’m sitting on more than 8 million AMEX points and generally find them somewhat less valuable than Capital One and Chase points, so transferring over a million AMEX points for what should become 1.2 million Alaska miles seems worthwhile, even if it’s not without some risk.

In the meantime, there are still 11 more days until the bonus ends, so I’ll hang tight and make a final decision about how many points to transfer before the bonus ends on 8/31 at 11:59pm MT.

Will you transfer AMEX points to Hawaiian with a 20% bonus in anticipation of an Alaska-Hawaiian merger?