Related:
–The Ultimate Hawaii Mileage Award Chart And Everything You Need To Know About The Hawaiian Islands
Until today United has always charged 6K miles per Hawaii interisland leg.
The meant that if you booked an award from Newark to Maui via Honolulu you would pay:
-22.5K miles coach or 40K miles first from Newark to Honolulu
-6K miles coach from Honolulu to Maui
-6K miles coach from Maui to Honolulu
-22.5K miles coach or 40K miles first from Honolulu to Newark.
The round-trip award would be 57K miles in coach or 92K miles in first.
Singapore Airlines only charges 17.5K miles in coach or 30K miles in first to fly one-way on United between the US49 and Hawaii.
With the ability to transfer AMEX, Chase, Citi and Starwood points to Singapore, that was the way to go unless United only offered expanded XN saver award availability to Hawaii on your desired flights, which requires having a United credit card and using United miles.
However Singapore can’t redeem for travel on interisland flights, and separate tickets typically meant having to recheck baggage in Honolulu. That’s not much fun as Honolulu is a horrendous airport for rechecking baggage as you need to bring your bags to the interisland terminal to do that. Still, it was worthwhile to do the price differential.
However United has stopped charging extra for interisland legs! This makes the value proposition of using United miles to Hawaii much greater.
Plus you can even tag on a 3rd interisland leg as a free excursionist perk!
Just use the multi-city award search on United.com to piece it together. For example:
And you can visit 2 Hawaiian Islands on one trip with 3 interisland flights for just 45K miles in coach:
Or visit 2 Hawaiian Islands on one trip with 3 interisland flights for just 80K miles in first:
Now that’s the Aloha spirit!
If only we could get United to bring back their Halfway to Hawaii in-flight contest…
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23 Comments On "United Lowers The Price Of Hawaii Awards!"
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That’s pretty cool. I just flew delta jfk-hnl and they had no problem sending my bags through to ogg.
Can Chase UR points be transferred to United miles?
@Ash:
Right, going to Hawaii is usually OK with Delta and United, though it depends on the rep. Forget about it with American though.
However having separate tickets from Hawaii to the mainland almost always means having to recheck luggage in HNL.
@MilesRookie:
Sure!
Once again, a very misleading title 🤦ðŸ»â€â™‚ï¸
@Dima:
How so?
When I flew to LIH and OGG last year I spent 92K miles per person in first class. This is a nice savings!
transferred a bunch of MR to singapore less than 30 minutes ago for hawaii purposes 😛
though singapore is still a better deal if you don’t need the XN space as far as i can tell. and completely reasonable change and redeposit fees to boot
@blake:
Lol, might be able to recall it before the transfer goes through.
But yes, still a great deal if you don’t need XN space and don’t mind rechecking luggage in another terminal in HNL.
@dan Who needs an HNL connection when you can fly straight to your island of choice?
Only wish I could book the whole RT at once but my return is not currently available so will roll the dice on something opening later…or just stay forever
@blake:
1. It’s more pleasant to fly direct from EWR/IAD/IAH/ORD-HNL and get some sleep, rather than be interrupted with a stopover in LAX or SFO.
2. The equipment from EWR/IAD/IAH/ORD-HNL is much better in coach and first than LAX/SFO-KOA/LIH/OGG.
3. Availability to HNL is much better than KOA/LIH/OGG
4. Flying via HNL opens up other cities like ITO/LNY/MKK.
I’ve flown to Hawaii 7 times and for the reasons above it’s always been via HNL in both directions.
For someone not staying for Shabbos, you get more hours in Hawaii if you leave first thing Sunday morning from CA. That’s goes on the pro side for splitting up the trip on the mainland.
@dan All fair points, though for me, #1 is moot since we a) are flying out of BOS, and b) have small kids, so nobody’s sleeping much anyway and the last thing we want is an extra connection. And we’ll hopefully be in E+ so equipment differences shouldn’t be too big of a deal. But if availability opens up through HNL that I can’t find out of LIH then of course that’ll be the way to go.
@Dan, never take seriously criticism from a guy named “Dima” whose TR named “FLYING EMIRATES FIRST CLASS ON A380 (AND JORDAN)” includes pictures of EY F, lol.
@@Yehuda:
To be honest, I’m not sure I’d shlep to Hawaii if I had to avoid being there from Thursday-Shabbos.
Too much of a shlep.
@blake:
Your kids wouldn’t sleep on a HNL-ORD/NYC redeye return?
And I’d take E+ on a widebody over a 737 anyday.
@AJK:
LOL
Was just in OGG and both ways the plane was half empty which is pretty unusuall these days. This might be the explanation. Looks like they are having a hard time filling up the seats on UA.
Also, @Dima or whatever your bris name is,,, No one asked you to come to this website , its not like you are forced to drive by this street to get to your destination. Obviously you enjoy it here. If you regularly find something annoying or offensive , get lost and shut up.
How many saver award miles for ORD-KOA-LIH-ORD in Y?
Dan,
If booking first class to Singapore for 30k each way what is the best way to check United a website to see if that fight option with points is available?
I don’t see how to book Singapore airlines to HNL. Whenever I try to search, it says there are no flights, no matter the date.
@SOZ:
Now 45K instead of 57K.
@Joe:
Look for saver awards.
@terp:
You need to call them.
I recently booked a Hawaii award ticket on United (Plan B 🙂 ) including a leg on Hawaiian, just wanted to point out a couple of things:
1. The legs on Hawaiian are in Economy only, not First, even if you book a First award.
2. The Saver First award availability to Hawaii is still pretty horrendous, I couldn’t find a single HNL-EWR flight with Saver First available for the entirety of the available calendar
3. You were previously able to book the Hawaiian flights without paying extra miles, as long as you booked it as a one-way and not multi-city. For example, I was able to book LIH-HNL-EWR (plan B) for 40k miles per person. The improvement now is just in the multi-city itineraries. Which is a good improvement–it just shouldn’t be overstated. Your post implied that the itinerary I booked would have required an extra 6k miles pp and that just is not the case (at least it wasn’t in January).
@Oren:
1. Correct, but it’s a 20 minute flight 🙂
2. It comes and goes. I’ve been able to fly EWR-HNL in business every time by checking daily and pouncing when it’s released.
3. I paid 46K last year for the one-way. I guess this policy was changed at some point earlier, but it’s never been discussed online and I’ve never noticed it until AJK pointed it out on DDF yesterday.
@Dan:
3 times Sun-Thurs now, and I still love it. Then again, haven’t done it with kids.
@@Yehuda:
That explains it then 🙂
I have a United credit card and the $95 annual fee is due. I also have a Chase Sapphire Reserve and really don’t want to pay the United annual fee. What do you recommend? Shall I cancel and then reapply? Thank you.