Which airline to Hawaii using FF Miles

[susiequeve]

Hello,

I need some advice. I'm trying to book FF miles for my trip to Maui next July. Here's my itinerary: Boston - Maui, Maui - San Francisco, San Francisco - Boston. Which airline do you think I've got a better chance of getting, United or US Airlines. I've got Marriott FF miles to use. American Airlines doesn't fly into San Francisco and I also only have 1 stopover that I can use on the award. It's really hard to know which airline to transfer my miles into.

Thanks a lot.

[winger]

Originally Posted by susiequeve

Hello,

I need some advice. I'm trying to book FF miles for my trip to Maui next July. Here's my itinerary: Boston - Maui, Maui - San Francisco, San Francisco - Boston. Which airline do you think I've got a better chance of getting, United or US Airlines. I've got Marriott FF miles to use. American Airlines doesn't fly into San Francisco and I also only have 1 stopover that I can use on the award. It's really hard to know which airline to transfer my miles into.

...

American does fly into SFO from Boston, so try again. American is nice b/c you don't have to have miles in your acct first before booking. Do you already have ff acct w/ us airlilne and united? B/c i normally would go with whom I have an ff acct opened. I hate to open more and more accts, of any type

[Steamboat Bill]

These types of trips are getting much harder to book with FF miles and you will probably have to double the miles to get a seat as the standard 25,000 miles will probably not be available.

[susiequeve]

Hello again,

Thanks for your responses:

Actually I need to get from Maui to San Francisco then on to Boston. American has no direct flight from Maui into San Francisco, I'd have to fly into LAX. I have FF accounts with US Air, United & American.

From Boston, I'll need 35,000 per ticket round trip from Boston to Maui according the charts. I'm probably going to stick with American and fly into LAX and forget about stopping in San Francisco for a few days.

I might add that I'm trying to use Marriott Reward points

[elaine]

we have done this before---pay out of pocket for your Maui-Oahu flight then take AA. Otherwise, I would go with United.
But, as soon as 331 day window opens up, see if you can get the AA flights--they used to hold for 2 weeks even if you don't have miles in your account.

[SherryS]

United and AA are the only airlines that seem to offer 35,000 mile seats to Hawaii right now, or maybe CO. (We have booked 4 people TPA-HNL or OGG in 35,000 mile seats since March 2007). Good Luck!!

[winger]

I don't have 'internet' now but is there direct flights from maui into oakland (or 2nd choice, san jose)? not too hard to get into san fran from these two cities, though I prefer oakland.

[susiequeve]

Thanks everyone - I guess I have alot of thinking to do LOL.

[RLG]

Here's my suggestions:

1) don't transfer the marriott points until you have an award reservation on "hold". you don't want to find your points at an airline which no longer has availability.

2) put an aa award on hold as soon as they have availability for the date you want for bos-ogg, with return the next day. that way you lock in your outbound. as soon as they offer availability on the other legs you can change the dates for the return at no cost. the aa reservation hold will last for 14 days.

3) if ual lets you do so, do the same as in 2. i believe ual's holds are much shorter, however.

4) ual probably has a better schedule from ogg-sfo. however, if i wanted a stopover in sfo, i wouldn't drop it just because i had to change planes at lax on aa. btw, i recommend stopping on the west coast for a day or two if you have the time. the long flight and 6 hour timezone change is pretty painful.

5) the suggestion of paying for an ogg-hnl is useful when you can't find award availability at all. (you could book bos-hnl as an award and pay for hnl-ogg.) it likely won't be needed for your itinerary.

6) as you can guess from my residence, i fly the hawaii/mainland routes a lot. i've found the coach award availability to be very good on both ual and aa. i don't think you'll have a problem getting what you need.

[Courts]

Just a caution.

Don't know about other airlines, but UAL changed my stop over to Chicago from LA without notifying me. Raised h___ till they changed it back and had to keep an eye on it through web site till departure.

.

[philemer]

AA and UA have the most FF seats available nationwide. This has been discussed a lot on flyertalk.com

Bill: if you are having trouble getting 35K awards to HI then you aren't trying hard enough. We get these awards every year to HI. It helps to call 331 days out.

Phil

[Steamboat Bill]

My problem with Delta is going Ft Lauderdale to Salt Lake City or Vancouver.

It seems even if I call or check the web 331 days before at midnight...there are no 25k seats available...only 50k seats. Thus, I upgrade to first class for 40k and call it a day. It just is an unnecessary waste of points for a family of four.

My personal opinion is that Delta blocks the 25k saver rates for the popular flights.

[turkel]

We have both US air and United FF accounts. I got 3 US air and 1 United FF free tix this summer. I sure wish I had had all those miles with United. US air dictated our departure date and times because all of 1 flight was available. On United we could have gone any time ,day, or thru our local SNA instead of LAX. We will all be flying UNited so this was a partner flight at 35000miles. If we had flown US air the tix would have been 70000miles if there was any availability which their wasn't


Good luck
Pam

[susiequeve]

I really do appreciate your expert advice since I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination. My trip is next summer so I can't book yet. But I will check United & American and put on "hold" before I transfer my points. I didn't even know I could do this. That's why I love this forum. Thanks so much everyone for your suggestions. Planning a trip with MM really does take a lot of time & research but it's all worth it in the end.

[pcgirl54]

I am flying from Logan to Maui in May 2008 and am trying to figure out the same thing. I am using AMex points and also have AA and Delta pts. At least I have learned that we need a jet lag recoup coming back. Dh wants to fly First class but we don't need to do that the entire route. Luckily the resort is confirmed.

This is mind boggling to me. Although I have planned trips for years this one is making my head spin. I was trying to avoid LAX coming back as we have seen LA before.

[susiequeve]

PCGIRL54 - Yes, our resort is booked too. Just need to work on that darn flight LOL Good Luck with your booking.

[Kauai Kid]

Don't hold your breath...the best we've ever been able to do is upgrade to first class...one time.

Sterling

[pcgirl54]

SusieQueve-I live 20 minutes from you in Dighton,MA. Also staying at Cove at Yarmouth Labor Day weekend for the first time. We own at Brewster Green.

Sterling,we have been saving Amex pts for 10 yrs for such a trip. If you use their travel agency there are no blackout dates. We have made contact with an Amex agent and will know more this week. She has been to Hawaii 50 times.

If you are a PLatinum member the concierge service is free. We are too thrifty to join Platinum unless this trip makes us so crazy that the fee is better than the added stress level.

I'm still learning more every day. I am a newbie at this trip for sure so any advice is much appreciated from all of the Hawaii or FF Tug experts.

I was lucky enough to get the Westin Ka'anapali and I hope my luck continues for the flight. Bless my Cape Cod week!

[SherryS]

Getting the resorts, NOW, seems to be the easiest part of planning, and getting those darn FF seats (for 35,000 miles) is the hardest part. A few years ago, it was the opposite!

[susiequeve]

pcgirl54, You will like The Cove At Yarmouth, We have owned there since 1984 and we are about to close on selling it. We will miss our summer week on the Cape but we don't need three timeshares anymore. A summer unit on the Cape trades extremely well. You got a fantastic a trade -the Westin, from what I hear, is quite the resort. We got Wailea Beach Resort in Maui and I'm happy with that. We're using our Marriott Reward points. PS I went to Dighton Rehoboth Regional High School. Small world.

[RLG]

PCGIRL54, your situation is different from that of the OP. Unfortunately, Amex points aren't as easy to use for tickets to Hawaii as the UA or AA frequent flyer miles she's talking about using.

Amex membership rewards (i assume that's what you have) can be used for travel in two different ways:

1) you can convert them to frequent flyer miles at one of amex's affiliated airlines and then book a frequent flyer mile ticket on that airline; or

2) you can buy a ticket through the amex travel agency and use the amex points to pay for the ticket at 1 cent per amex point.

If you're speaking to the amex travel agency, then that's option 2. That will probably cost you over 70k amex points per ticket.

Option 1 is typically MUCH better if one of amex's airlines has frequent flyer availability. Unfortunately, in my experience, that isn't normally the case for trips to Hawaii. Note that UA and AA are NOT part of the amex program.

My suggestion would be, if you know someone who has UA or AA miles and needs amex points, to have them book your hawaii tickets using their miles and then you give them amex points. That should take a lot fewer than 70k amex points per ticket.