Island hop fares are way higher than last year

[rickandcindy23]

The best I can find from Maui to Lihue, RT, is $162 with taxes and fees. That is so much higher than last year, when we paid only $59 total for the same thing.

Has anyone else been lucky with better fares around the end of March, early April time period?

[barndweller]

Back at the end of October I purchased our 1 way island hop from BI to Kauai through HNL. That is essentially 2 hops. I paid $73.30 each with taxes. I took it because at that time the plane showed 1/2 of the seats gone already. I didn't want to take the chance of a 6am flight being the only one left! That's for beginning of March.

[DeniseM]

Hi Cindy - is that RT or one way? I see one way fares around $107 including all fees on Go Airlines.

[Icarus]

Originally Posted by DeniseM

I see one way fares around $107 including all fees on Go Airlines.

I think you meant RT, right?

I can see $49 OW fares (plus taxes) on Aloha Airlines for the end of March. I didn't check Hawaiian, but I'm sure they are all matching each other.

I don't see why anybody would fly/recommend Go! (Mesa Air) when Aloha and Hawaiian offer the same fares. But I guess many people don't care about corporate conduct one way or the other.

-David

[rickandcindy23]

I would take a big plane over a little one any day. I feel safer, but we have used Go Airlines twice and liked them. Island Air is no longer an option for us because of the baggage restrictions. I don't feel that I can buy anything without going over the weight limit.

Yes, Denise, that is round trip for $162. I didn't see any RT fares for 3/28-4/4 less than $162 total.

Darn, my bargains are over for my hops. Last year, GO was only charging $19 per leg when I booked.

[rickandcindy23]

Still searching for a better deal on that roundtrip hop.

We are probably going to go with Hawaiian. Maybe they will think it is ridiculous that we are flying non-stop to HNL from Denver, then we have to go on to Maui on Hawaiian (our flight is to Maui with USAirways), then we have to take our hop to Lihue, which stops again at HNL. Our second week is going to be on Maui, so that is why I chose Maui for our RT flight.

So
Denver > Honolulu
Honolulu > Maui
Maui > Honolulu
Honolulu > Kauai


If I could just get Hawaiian to allow us to just go from Honolulu directly to Kauai, that would free up 3 seats. Sounds like a financially smart thing for them to do, doesn't it?

[BocaBum99]

We are going to the BI for spring break. I just looked up flights and they are $49 each way. I bit higher than last year, but not by much.

[philemer]

Cindy,
Don't you have any UA miles to burn? R/T, interisland, is still 5000 miles IF there are seats available. Maybe too late now.

Phil

[Icarus]

Originally Posted by rickandcindy23

Still searching for a better deal on that roundtrip hop.

We are probably going to go with Hawaiian. Maybe they will think it is ridiculous that we are flying non-stop to HNL from Denver, then we have to go on to Maui on Hawaiian (our flight is to Maui with USAirways), then we have to take our hop to Lihue, which stops again at HNL. Our second week is going to be on Maui, so that is why I chose Maui for our RT flight.

So
Denver > Honolulu
Honolulu > Maui
Maui > Honolulu
Honolulu > Kauai


If I could just get Hawaiian to allow us to just go from Honolulu directly to Kauai, that would free up 3 seats. Sounds like a financially smart thing for them to do, doesn't it?

I'm confused. It sounds like what you might have considered was booking the mainland to Hawaii as an open jaw trip, flying DEN - LIH and then returning from Maui. In that case, and if you could find a decent fare at that price, you would only need to book LIH - OGG as an interisland flight. Many airlines fly nonstop from the mainland (but not necessarily from DEN) to LIH and most have nonstop returns from Maui. I think UA has seasonal nonstop service from Maui - DEN, and that may be only certain days of the week. (I've given up trying to track UAs changes in/out of Maui on routes I don't normally fly.)

You have to look at the total price, including the interisland flights when doing something like this. The mainland open jaw might be slightly higher, but it's possible that the total package could be cheaper.

I'm still confused about your dates and which interisland flights you need to book, but on the dates I checked, you could book HNL-OGG for $49 and OGG-LIH for $73, including on the nonstop on Aloha Airlines. Those prices exclude taxes. If the booking engines are giving you higher prices for 3 seats, you might try booking 1 or 2 seats, and then the other 1 or 2 seats. But that can be risky too. In theory, the booking engines should be able to figure out if there's only 1 or 2 seats available at the lower price and offer you that on 1 or 2 of the seats, and then use the higher price for the third seat, but you never know how sophisticated their software is, or if they will automatically open up another cheaper seat once the 1 or 2 available ones are sold.

-David

[rickandcindy23]

We have tons of FF miles with both USAirways and United.

Yep, this is confusing alright.

We are arriving on Oahu at 3:30, and it would save us tons of money to just fly from there, so much so that we are probably going to pay the $100 change of ticket to do that and fly from Honolulu directly to Kauai.

If we do this ridiculous extra flight between HNL and OGG, we are stuck with only Hawaiian Airlines, for $180 RT from Maui to Kauai. As far as I can tell, they are the only airline that flies to Kauai from Maui late enough. We are going to be on Maui at about 5:30.

I wanted to fly to Maui because I wanted to be on that island at the end of the trip, so we wouldn't tire Mom out (80 this year) with any unnecessary hops before going home on our all-night flight to Denver from Honolulu. I didn't really start panicking about the interisland hops until now.

I was trying to explain this dilemma to a friend this evening, during dinner, and I had her totally confused, but you all get it, don't you?

[auntdef]

If I understand correctly, your outbound flt is Den->HNL->OGG on USAir.

Be very careful, if you don't complete take the 2nd leg of your outbound flight...USAirways can (and likely will) cancel the return portion of your trip.

Another problem will be that your luggage will be checked thru to Maui. The booking shld have been done as an open jaw (land in one city, return from another), maybe that is still an option but as you said...there will be a change fee and at this late date also a possible diff in airfare from when you booked.

Good luck

[Icarus]

Yes, you seem to have gotten yourself into quite a pickle Cindy. Next time remember that it might be worth a few extra bucks to fly to exactly where you want to go, return from where you want to return from and skip stopping in Honolulu. I would imagine that your flights from Denver are probably flying to another mainland city, changing planes there, then changing planes again in Honolulu, and then you end up on Maui instead of the island where you actually want to be for the first part of your trip. At least for the return flight, your flight leaves from the island you are going to be on. Is that all correct?

Will US Air let you change your outbound so you end up in Kauai, but keep your return flights from Maui? If that's the case, you will have to pay the change fees plus the one way interisland flight from Kauai to Maui, and you should be able to book the non-stop on Aloha for $73 plus taxes if that fare is available on the day you need to switch islands.

I don't know if Hawaiian has non-stops from Kauai to Maui, but you can check. If at all possible, avoid the flights that stop or change planes in Honolulu if the non-stop is available.

-David

[rickandcindy23]

David, we are flying non-stop to HNL, then we hop to Maui. But our ultimate goal for the first week is Kauai, but the Kauai hop stops again at HNL. Wow, it will be tons of fun!

USAirways is using Hawaiian for the hop to Maui, so Rick is hoping to get our flights adjust through Hawaiian. I doubt they will do it.

If USAirways would allow us to fly to Kauai instead, well that would be ideal. It would be worth every bit of the $100 fee, if that fee will even do what we want.

This is the first time we have had this happen. And we can roll with it and do the seemingly-ridiculous extra hop without complaining, if that is what we have to do. I would just like to fix it, if we can.

[DG001]

Hi Cindy,

I know you said you did not want to fly IslandAir, but they have a direct flight between Maui and LIH.

Thought you might want to check that out...

DG

[teepeeca]

Island Air has baggage weight restrictions. Probably not a good alternative, in my opinion. (Maybe we just pack too much !!!???)

Tony

[ciscogizmo1]

I'm not sure if I'm following so, my suggestion might be useless. But Aloha offers a non-stop flight once a day around 9:30 am for about $82. Good luck... I think, I had your problem once when we needed to go to 2 islands. I think, I ended up calling Hawaiian Airlines and they fixed for me. They told me in the future if I wanted to use FF miles and island hop to call them directly to book instead of booking online.

[rickandcindy23]

Tony, that is precisely why we don't fly Island Air. Those little planes can be expensive, if you have to pay for extra weight.

I have been talking to both Hawaiian and USAirways, and I can tell you that this whole thing has been a mess, but we are probably just going to pay the price and fly Hawaiian those two extra legs. I am not giving the airlines more money for changes because I happen to be stubborn about it.

Our total cost for those hops will be $184 I think, with taxes. That is Hawaiian Airlines for the hops, with their nice big planes and lots of luggage allowance. The hops are only $49 for most of the airlines, but that extra stop on Oahu between Lihue and Maui really is an expensive up and down. They charge twice as much. Makes me crazy.

[chellej]

Cindy

Your flights are available from Hawaiian air as reward seats, 10000 miles for each round trip.

If you sign up for the Hawaiian Miles credit card through BOFA, you will receive 20000 miles - that is enough for 2 round trip tickets. It justifies the $50 annual fee for me. I just did this and booked our tickets for May.

Also checking just now, it looks like rt is $170 including tax