Transferring American Express Membership Award points to Alaska Airlines is one of the most lucrative plays in the points and miles world at the moment. For a limited time, travelers can leverage an Amex points transfer to access Alaska’s valuable award redemptions by first transferring to Hawaiian Airlines You can use the portal below to transfer from Hawaiian Airlines to Alaska Airlines.
Hawaiian Airlines to Alaska Airlines Transfer Portal: https://storefront.points.com/mileage-plan/en-US/exchange?lpId=2053
In September, Alaska Airlines completed their long awaited acquisition of Hawaiian Airlines. Almost immediately, they added the ability to transfer between their two programs at a 1:1 value.
Why is this a big deal? While Alaska Airlines Mileage plan can be a very valuable program, the biggest challenge is that miles aren’t that easy to earn since none of the major bank-run point programs offer point transfers to Alaska. Only Bilt offers 1:1 transfers to Alaska Airlines.
However, American Express allows 1:1 transfers (for now) to Hawaiian Airlines. Which, you guessed it, can then be transferred 1:1 to Alaska Airlines, indirectly allowing you to transfer American Express Membership Rewards points to Alaska Mileage Plan.
While we don’t know how long this will last, we don’t expect it will be around forever. Alaska has announced plans to bring the two points programs together as one, and it is unlikely you will still be able to transfer American Express points to the new, combined program.
So, should we transfer our Amex points to Alaska miles (via Hawaiian)?
Flying On Alaska Airlines And Partners
Here are some things to consider:
- Do you like Alaska’s new award charts? I am a fan, but depending on your travel interests, it may not make sense for you.
- Do you have a large enough stash of Amex points that you’re comfortable transferring? American Express points are one of the most valuable rewards currencies, and we like always having a stash on hand if possible, so I’d only consider transferring points above that threshold.
- Are you willing to pay Amex’s “excise tax offset fee” of $0.0006 per point (with maximum fee of $99 once you hit 165,000 points) for transfers to U.S. based airline programs?
Personally, I had about 350,000 Amex MR points, and knew that I had more coming soon in the form of a signup bonus from the American Express Platinum Card. I transferred 250,000 points to Hawaiian.
Part of that calculus was that I hit the $99 fee cap at 165,000 points transferred, so instead of doing a second transfer down the line (with more fees), I decided to do a larger transfer to lower the relative fee.
I already found a great use for the points and used 85,000 Alaska Airlines miles to book an incredible experience on Starlux Airlines from San Francisco to Bangkok (via Taipei)!
Check out more sweet spots later in this post to see if it’s right for you!
Steps to Transfer Amex Points to Alaska Mileage Plan Miles
- Transfer Amex Points to HawaiianMiles: Log into your Amex account, navigate to the Membership Rewards section, and select Hawaiian Airlines as the transfer partner. Enter your Hawaiian account information, select the number of points you wish to transfer, and complete the transaction, keeping in mind the associated fee.
- Transfer HawaiianMiles to Alaska Mileage Plan Miles: Once the points are in your HawaiianMiles account, visit this page to initiate the transfer to Alaska Mileage Plan miles. Double check to make sure that the names on both accounts match to facilitate the transfer.
Both transfers may take up to 72 hours, but they happened instantly when I did it.
How Alaska Airlines Prices Award Flights
In March 2024, Alaska Airlines instituted a new award chart that sought to simplify the world of award redemptions. Realistically, this was a nice way of launching a devaluation that diminished the value of Mileage Plan miles by about 20%+ on average. Currently, Alaska uses a dynamic award pricing system where award flights will begin at a certain price based on where you depart.
There are now just a total of three charts used for partner awards (below):
Includes travel from US to Americas and within Americas. Americas include North America, Caribbean Islands, Central America and South America
Includes travel from US to EMEA and within EMEA. EMEA includes Europe, Middle East and Africa
Includes travel from US to Asia Pacific, within Asia Pacific and between Asia Pacific–Europe, Middle East, Africa. Asia Pacific includes SE Asia, Indian Subcontinent, South Pacific, Japan/Korea.
For flights flying on Alaska Airlines metal, an Alaska Airlines award chart is used:
One-way award pricing for Alaska Airlines operated flights using Alaska Airlines miles
Alaska Airlines Sweet Spots
Alaska Airlines still has some excellent sweet spot redemptions, with a particular emphasis on shorter haul routes. With Roame, you can explore Alaska Airlines availability alongside 16 other airline programs in real time, making it easy to spot the best routes and redemptions to fit your plans.
For even more convenience, Roame’s SkyView is available to all users to compare routes and pricing across a range of dates and airlines. And with Roame Pro, you can set custom alerts—so you’ll be notified the moment that perfect award seat opens up on the route of your dreams.
Seattle <> Tokyo (HND/NRT) In Business Class For 60k Miles
The new Alaska award chart clocks in partner business bookings to/from Asia/US starting at just 60,000 miles for flights flying 3,001-5,000 miles. Unfortunately, SFO/LAX to Japan clocks in at just over 5,000 miles, but Seattle just squeaks in under that threshold. This means you can still get some fantastic pricing with Alaska Airlines partner business class bookings to Japan via Seattle.
Northeast US <> British Isles + Europe In Business Class (Some Routes) For 45k Miles
For partner flights flying anywhere between 1,501–3,500 miles, business class seats cost just 45,000 Alaska miles each way. There are several transatlantic flights to/from several Northeast US airports that just squeeze by that threshold:
- BOS <> MAD: 3,410 miles
- BOS <> LHR: 3,265 miles
- BOS <> DUB: 2,993 miles
- JFK <> LHR: 3,451 miles
- JFK <> DUB: 3,179 miles
BOS <> MAD just squeezes in under 3,500 miles, so it's awesome to see that it's just 45k miles one way!
US <> Iceland & Europe Via Business Class For 35k Miles
Icelandair "business class" is actually just US domestic first class / premium economy on international airlines—the seats are just larger and comfier (supposedly). Their seats cannot fully recline and lie flat.Alaska prices these flights as "premium economy," which means that they only charge 35,000 miles for premium economy flights flying 3,501–5,000 miles.
For instance, a flight from Boston to Iceland to Madrid on Icelandair business class would cost just 35,000 miles (even with a stopover in Iceland).
Intra-North America Short Haul Economy Flights
For short-haul flights traveling within North America, you can get pretty good value out of your Alaska miles again:
- 701–1,400 miles: 5,000 miles
- 1,401–2,100 miles: 10,000 miles
- All distances for Mexico, Central America and Caribbean: 10,000 miles
Notably, these are all "starting at" prices, meaning these are the lowest possible fares you'll see for these routes. However, for what it's worth, knowing these are the lowest prices can give you a gauge on whether or not it makes sense to deploy your miles when necessary.
Alaska Airlines Stopover Policy
Alaska has an incredible stopover program where you can easily book a free stopover on an award ticket. Pricing for stopover tickets is based on the beginning and final ticket destination & the cumulative distance traveled. So that means if you fly from A to B to C, the price will be determined by the total distance flown and where you begin A and end C (see the award charts above).
To book Alaska Airlines stopovers, you'll need to navigate to the site and select "All search options" and then select "Multi-city" on the next screen.
Conclusion
You can now transfer miles between Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines, which effectively means you can convert American Express Membership Rewards points into Alaska Mileage Plan miles. Even after its devaluation in 2024, Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan is still one of the best frequent flyer programs out there. There are still some great redemption opportunities out there, not to mention the general flexibility of Alaska Airlines award bookings.
While Alaska Airlines miles are usually hard to come by, this new connection may be valuable enough to transfer your American Express miles to Alaska, even if you don’t have an immediate use for them.
