Hainan Airlines transfer redemption

[titaniumostrich]

Next year will potentially involve many stays at chain hotels. (I’m still trying to figure out a way to unload this burden on a colleague, but that’s another matter). I’m trying to figure out the best way to spend HHonor points on flights, which is generally not so interesting at the 10:1 transfer rate to legacy carriers.

I was wondering if anybody has looked into the following exotic construct:

Hilton Honors transfers at an 25:10 ratio to Hainan Airways. So say £20k in HHonors points with Diamond bonus is 400k points (or excluding any extra credit card/promotional earn). After transfer you are left with 160k miles.

That would equate a round trip in business on Alaska in their 3000+ mile band, or just short of a one-way in first on Etihad in their 4501–6000 mile band (probably attainable with the extra points earned?).

Anybody have any ideas for better airfare spending options? No idea what the surcharges are either….

[memesweeper]

titaniumostrich wrote:

That would equate a round trip in business on Alaska in their 3000+ mile band, or just short of a one-way in first on Etihad in their 4501–6000 mile band (probably attainable with the extra points earned?).

Anybody have any ideas for better airfare spending options? No idea what the surcharges are either….

I did not know Hainan were a transfer partner at that rate. At 25:10 there’s arguably no loss of value if you can hit one of the Hainan “sweet spots”. 100,000 Hainan will take you on TAP from Portugal to Brazil in Business, for instance. Examples quoted show reasonable TFCs, but this is obviously subject to change at any time, and you are also at the mercy of a sudden devaluation of Hainan while you are saving up, or indeed the removal of Hainan as a Hilton partner.

Clearly there is a problem for a UK based miles collector in Hainan, which is there is no other obvious route for collecting the miles beyond Hilton Honors, so if you are a “just short” of your desired redemption on Etihad you could be stuck with having to buy the miles from Hainan, at what will undoubtedly be a terrible rate. There is also no online redemption booking feature for any interesting airline, which is a pain.

I wonder if 150,000 Virgin Atlantic miles could be turned into 100,000 Hainan using this method? 😆