Don't ignore the Hawaiian Miles program. Hawaiian Miles are easy to earn, and there are sweet spots on the chart that offer solid value.

Hawaiian Airlines miles have never been easier to acquire. Anyone can get 71,000 Hawaiian miles by opening just two credit cards.

The Hawaiian Airlines® World Elite MasterCard® comes with a 35,000 mile sign-up bonus after spending $1,000 in 90 days. The Hawaiian Airlines® Business MasterCard® comes with a 35,000 mile sign-up bonus after the first purchase.

There is a 20% transfer bonus from American Express Membership Rewards to Hawaiian Airlines miles until June 23, 2014.

This can be a good way to top up your Hawaiian Miles balance if you've recently gotten The Hawaiian Airlines® World Elite MasterCard® with 35,000 bonus miles after spending $1,000 in the first 90 days.

Is this a good deal?

Saturday night I had the pleasure of flying Hawaiian Airlines First Class from Honolulu to Las Vegas.

I had an internet outage at home that day, so I headed to the airport about four hours early to try to get some work done on more reliable wifi.

Hawaiian Airlines has the largest check in area of any airline at Honolulu International Airport.

I know a lot of people with around 5,000 Hawaiian miles. Until recently, I was one of them. That's about what you'd have if you've flown one paid roundtrip on Hawaiian Airlines.

For a lot of people, those miles are headed to an unused expiration.

But if you have The Hawaiian Airlines® World Elite MasterCard®, you can receive miles from other Hawaiian Miles accounts for free through the online share miles promotion.

The Hawaiian Airlines® World Elite MasterCard® comes with 35,000 bonus Hawaiian Miles after spending $1,000 on the card in the first 90 days. That's enough bonus miles for a roundtrip on Hawaiian Airlines from the mainland to anywhere in Hawaii.

The six main reasons I love this offer:

Hawaiian Airlines has amazing award availability from the western United States to all the major Hawaiian islands.
Cardholders receive a discount on Hawaiian Airlines awards, so instead of paying 20k miles each way between the mainland and Hawaii, cardholders pay only 17,500 miles each way.

Reader @bitachu gave me an incredible tip the other day--at trivia night in Honolulu of all places--check out Virgin America's award chart for flights on Hawaiian Airlines.

Basically the chart is incredible and presents huge opportunity for mainlanders and Hawaiians alike whether they want to go to Hawaii or beyond.

Instead of just listing the chart, they have you type in your departure and arrival cities and spit out the number of Elevate points you need to book the award.
Nonetheless, I think I've figured out the underlying chart. Basically, it's a chart-plus-segment mechanism.

Warning: I'm only 90% confident in the information in this post. It took several calls and a few hours on the phone talking to incompetent agents to get this information, so I'll provide it without triple-checking. I invite commenters to check my work.

Virgin Atlantic Upper Class is an incredible business class product by all indications.

Hey there, you're reading an outdated post! The updated series from April 2015 can be found here.

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