Best way to get to Hawaii and back?

[LindyLoo]

Hi team, way ahead of the curve, I’ll be receiving my 2-4-1 voucher soon with expiry date of 2 years so I booked a cruise for a week round the Hawaii islands for next year (September 2025) I just need to get there now!
Can I use my 2-4-1 voucher to get there? Flying from Glasgow to Honolulu (via Heathrow) but I want to stop at San Diego for one night prior to going on to Hawaii and stop for 7 – 8 nights at San Diego before flying back to Glasgow (via Heathrow) coming back

I’m looking how best to do this… I doubt I’ll get what I want on the website as it keeps pinging me to Seattle! (test run with wrong dates just to see what it throws up) Would I be best to just phone them and absorb the booking fee?

[SJ]

Companion voucher can only be used in BA operated routes (ie a BA airplane). BA do not fly to Hawaii.

Your best bet is to use the companion voucher to fly to and from San Diego and have separate flights from there to Hawaii and back.

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

Your going to need a stop somewhere in the US for this and I’m not sure 2-4-1 will allow an AA flight on the same booking that allows such a long stop over.

One thing to watch is that despite the distance it seems most of the flights to Hawaii don’t have lie flat seats but recliners but IIRC ex DFW and ex Phoenix do. If that’s important to you it would restrict your options slightly.

You obviously won’t be able to book anything until this Autumn anyway but you’ve plenty of time to play around with options. One thing to bear in mind is that AAs booking horizon opens about a month or so later than BAs which would complicated booking reward flights together on the same booking.

[LindyLoo]

Yeah was thinking that SJ… was hoping to gain Avios points on my Alaska Airlines flight as I knew I’d have to pay for that separately.. Think I’ll be going with Southwest or Alaska… whichever is cheapest..

[LindyLoo]

Thanks BA Flyer IHG Stayer… I am not looking forward to a 5hr+ flight without comfort but it is what it is… the first class seats are mega expensive!… enlighten me..’IIRC ex DFW’ what are the acronyms?

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

If I Recall Correctly

Departing Dallas Fort Worth

[Jill Kinkell]

We flew AA from Phoenix to Oahu It was a cash booking but can’t remember how much as it ended up being a voucher for a Covid cancelled flight to somewhere else! Day flight was ok out bound
But overnight on way back in economy!!! Never again, too old ! Glad we went, but if there was a next time, I’d go to another island. We only went to use the credit voucher as it was a case of use it or lose it

[SJ]

Bear in mind as well that Hawaiian Airlines is due to join Oneworld in 2024 after being bought by Alaska, so may offer more options to get there from the mainland.

I’m not sure what their seats are like though.

[LindyLoo]

Thanks Jill Kinkell, is AA American Airlines or Alaska Airlines? … I’m to old to be crushed for 6 hours but they are both day time flights so will be OK.. price from economy refundable to first refundable is £924.40 to £3,871.00…nearly £3K…eeekkk!

[LindyLoo]

Yeah I read that SJ but what advantage is that for a mere BA Blue member? I’m not sure if I can even claim Avios on the flight when I pay for it…

[NorthernLass]

You’re not going to be able to mix BA and another airline on a reward booking. I would use the 241 to get to California (you sometimes see F availability for LAX, which would be very nice), then connect on one of the many carriers which serve Hawaii. We went on Delta many years ago.

Domestic air fares in the USA are high post-Covid, I see Americans complaining about them all the time on our FB timeshare page. To get something decent you need to plan ahead and track prices – fortunately you have plenty of time to do this.

AA now has dynamic pricing for reward seats, which means you can be paying between 10k and 80k avios for the same journey depending on when you travel! Tues-Thurs and Sundays tend to be the cheapest.

[Jill Kinkell]

LindyLoo wrote:

Thanks Jill Kinkell, is AA American Airlines or Alaska Airlines? … I’m to old to be crushed for 6 hours but they are both day time flights so will be OK.. price from economy refundable to first refundable is £924.40 to £3,871.00…nearly £3K…eeekkk!

American Airlines. Don’t think we were as much as that. Butflights were booked pre Covid and it was for Miami to Lima which was cancelled. AA were great as they kept extending the credit vouchers! Happy travels

[Whatsthepoint]

Would the partner reward chart help here and just use Avios hought cheaply using boost or subscription?

[masaccio]

Unless I’m misunderstanding what the Alaska website is saying, there’s decent availability LAX-HNL in ‘first’ class. I don’t know how Alaska miles convert to Avios though. Price in Alaska miles is 50k per person each way.

That said, 200k Avios return for two people in what is basically premium economy for a 6 hour flight sounds a lot to me.

[Colin MacKinnon]

Sometimes you just have to forget about Avios and 241s.

In the good old pre-Covid days, you could buy Hawaii tickets in Business from Dublin or the Continent for c£1600 – and I think they are starting to come back.

The great thing about Avios is that you can cancel and get everything back (except c£30 each cash) up to 24 hours before first flight.

So book something with Avios, and then keep an eye out for a great price. Think of the Avios as worth 1p each and the calculation – 200,000 Avios for two return flight from Seattle to Hawaii! – becomes very expensive!

You’ll need your cash in Hawaii.

[LD27]

Pre Covid we flew to Honolulu from LAS and back to LAX with Hawaiian. At the time there were arm chair type seats at the front. There were flights at the time from Houston, DFW and Eastern seaboard airports which flat seats up front, so worth checking if that’s what you want. Sounds like flights have risen considerably post Covid. We still remember arriving at the car rental collection point to find a major argument taking place as the couple who were collecting their Mustang were complaining that it wasn’t the colour they specifically ordered! As others have said, Hawaii was very expensive.

[tiriavpo]

There are a lot of extraneous comments above to the original question. BA companion vouchers are not restricted to BA, there may well be better islands, or cheaper fares from LAX, or flat beds from DFW – but the OP has booked a cruise, which presumably departs from HNL as mentioned, and specifically said they need, or want, to be in San Diego on the way out and back.

For the OP: It is true that you can’t get all the way to HNL on a BA voucher. So the most straightforward way, utilising a 241 if that is desired, would probably be a 241 redemption to/from SAN and a separate ticket from there to HNL. GLA-LHR-SAN return with a 241 would be 200,000ish avios (peak) and £900 in taxes, and I can see Alaska business class (aka domestic first) returns from SAN to HNL for about £1000 each. Yes, they are not flatbeds, but they are proper fat recliners with decent service and definitely not ‘crushed’.

There are inherent dangers with separate tickets. If you get to SAN so late that you miss the HNL flight – tough. So I might think about more than a one-night buffer in SAN? From there onwards, redemptions in the US can be quite cheap with very low taxes but are not always easy to come by. Cash fares, if your BA Exec number is added to the booking, will earn you BA TPs and avios.

Yes, there are more ‘creative’ ways to get there. The seasoned TP runner would be looking for a trip departing from somewhere other than UK, going via various intermediate airports. There are currently BUD-HNL flights available for around £2000 each (compared with roughly £2500 each above) but they require a lot more travelling time, don’t necessarily go via SAN, and would explode price-wise with a 7-day stopover en-route.

Either way, it sounds like an epic trip! Hope it all works out.

[Blindman67]

Just to add to the mix

You can use Virgin miles to fly from LAX to HNL with Delta. (22,000 One Way-Economy=$6 taxes)

You have time to get the credit card to get the bonus sign up miles

[LindyLoo]

Thank you so much tiriavpo, as you advised, I will be staying in San Diego and taking a flight the next day to Honolulu, probably with Alaska Airlines, there is only one flight daily and it will have left well before we are due to land. It is quite a wee mini adventure for us and at our age, will be the last long journey we will take.

[LindyLoo]

Thanks Blindman67, flew to Florida last year with Virgin… disaster! Never again! The only good thing about it was the lounge in Heathrow, seating was dire! I was at the window, my husband was 3 seats away from me in the middle, no privacy! Flight back was a better with the new layout but still not a patch on BA new club world seating.

[LindyLoo]

Thanks masaccio I will stick with San Diego I think coz it is easier to get reward flights to there than LA

[tiriavpo]

LindyLoo wrote:

Thank you so much tiriavpo, as you advised, I will be staying in San Diego and taking a flight the next day to Honolulu, probably with Alaska Airlines, there is only one flight daily and it will have left well before we are due to land. It is quite a wee mini adventure for us and at our age, will be the last long journey we will take.

A Pleasure. My comment about separate tickets is that you need to build in redundancy. If you are connecting somewhere where there is only one flight per day (in or out) and your first flight is cancelled, or excessively delayed, or goes tech (etc) and you end up missing your onward flight, even if it is the next day, you have no come back. You will lose the onward flight and, by implication, the return leg from HNL as well. And, potentially, the cruise.

I might be inclined to build in more than one night outbound at the staging base – especially if you are aiming to make the start of a cruise – and you clearly can’t afford to miss the sailing time. Equally, and depending on your appetite for risk, you could build in a night in HNL before the ships sails. I tend to build in a bit of fat outbound but am prepared to be a bit more blasé on the return.

I has assumed from your original comment that San Diego was a specific requirement. If it is just somewhere to use the 241, and to stopover before the HNL leg, then be ready to book to wherever there is availability when the flights go on sale. Obviously research the options for suitable places to connect to HNL and remember that you don’t have to stopover in the same place each way – eg you could fly out to SAN (or wherever there is availability) and back through LAX (or vice versa etc). A single 241 can be used for a ticket going out to one place and returning from another. Research all of the options so that you are ready at the 355 days-to-go point when you should be a coiled spring ready to book.

[strickers]

Just booked Kahului (OGG) to San Diego (SAN) on Alaska Air using Avios. 16000 & £4.40 each in economy.

[strickers]

strickers wrote:

Just booked Kahului (OGG) to San Diego (SAN) on Alaska Air using Avios. 16000 & £4.40 each in economy.

For completeness, I contacted Alaska Air on Xwitter with my BA ticket number. They provide their PNR and I was able to manage my booking, seats had already been allocated, just baggage to pay for now nearer the time.

[zapato1060]

strickers wrote:

strickers wrote:

Just booked Kahului (OGG) to San Diego (SAN) on Alaska Air using Avios. 16000 & £4.40 each in economy.

For completeness, I contacted Alaska Air on Xwitter with my BA ticket number. They provide their PNR and I was able to manage my booking, seats had already been allocated, just baggage to pay for now nearer the time.

Always thought award flights came with 1x 23kg pp?