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Four months ago I broke the news that you could redeem Hawaiian Miles for Virgin Atlantic Upper Class without fuel surcharges, thus saving thousands of dollars. See Redeem for Virgin Atlantic Upper Class without Surcharges.
You still can, but the party may be over. The old chart was a solid value and simple to figure out.
The new chart, hat tip to Gary, is much worse.
I don’t have any information on what North America East and West are. But this is a huge devaluation since the west coast to London went from 100k to 160k.
Not many people had 100k Hawaiian Miles anyway, so this was mainly a play on transferring Membership Rewards. To that end, the only way I see this deal becoming viable again is through a Membership Rewards transfer bonus to Hawaiian Miles, which I don’t think has ever happened.
I had to call Hawaiian twice to figure out where Chicago is. The first didn’t know that there was a change in the award chart even after I kept telling her. The second said that Chicago is on the east coast.
What would you value Hawaiian Miles at now? I’d probably say half of hilton so about .3 cents each.
Half of Hilton points? You get two Hilton points per mile, so that should be twice Hilton points, or 1.2 cents if you value Hilton points at 0.6. But I think you can easily get better than that if you live in a city that Hawaiian serves by flying to Hawaii.
[…] I’ll admit that when Ultimate Rewards–Chase’s loyalty points–added Virgin Atlantic as a partner this year, I thought it was a non-event. We all know Virgin Atlantic charges massive fuel surcharges on its awards, and the best way to get on Virgin Atlantic is (or was) using Hawaiian Miles anyway. […]