cwojo99

Has anyone tried using their frequent flyer miles on Northwest to island hop in Hawaii?

I'm planning a trip for 11 days and would like to see 3 of the islands...thought I could save some money by using the FF miles.

Thanks! Have totally enjoyed everyones chats so far! Great message board!

girlonthego

I used Continental miles to island hop and they are affiliated with Northwest and Hawaiian Air.
I am trying to remember how many miles and I believe it was 5000 for a one way? I hope I am right. I just booked this for next spring. You should be able to convert to Hawaiian air also.

LouNJ

We did island-hop in July using Northwest miles. I believe Northwest requires only 5,000 per round trip; Continental, if I'm remembering correctly, wants 10,000 per round trip.

dusty56438

I think they are all 10,000 for a round trip now.

LouNJ - You probably made your reservation before the change even though you didn't use them until July.

LouNJ

True enough-- I made our reservations well in advance of our travel, so my info is old and, it seems, out of date!

repete

Unless you've got miles to burn, this isn't a great use of the miles: 30,000 miles for what you often buy for $250 or so.

cwojo99

Thanks for the responses! I will check prices before burning miles....good advice!

dusty56438

It will cost you about $150 for a round trip ticket to a different island or 10,000 FF miles.

That is pretty close to what they are worth.

Depending how you use FF miles, they are worth anywhere from $.01-$.03 per mile.

Example: I live in Hawaii and I can use FF miles to go anywhere on the mainland, but it will take 30,000 - 35,000 FF miles.

If I can get a round trip ticket to San Francisco for $300, I wouldn't use my FF miles. If I was going to New York and the fare was $700, I would use the FF miles.

I try to just use one airline to build up FF miles. But from some airports I've had
to use other airlines and also I got a couple of really good deals. So I'm trying to juggle four FF accounts.

They generally expire in three years if you don't have any activity (positive) on them. So I either use them, donate them to Make-A-Wish, or buy something cheap from their shopping partners like a CD just to keep it active.

repete

Another thing to consider here is routing, while it's no big deal to make roundtrips from HNL, it's not the best way to see three islands.

It's usually better to book one-way trips, i.e. Honolulu to Maui to Kauai and back to HNL. Depending on your program, one-way interisland awards might not be available.

Dusty is right about the value per FF mile. I'm a tight-wad about FF miles and save them for the occasional great deals that pop up from time to time . . . although in afterthought I'm not sure that BWI-IAH-HNL-Guam-CNS trip to Australia was THAT fun for my family while I was in Qantas biz class ...