Alaska sent out their insider newsletter letting subscribers know about their 5% discount on select economy flights. You must book by 2/23/15 and you must travel from 3/3/2015 to 4/1/2015. Their select discounted flights also include several Hawaiian islands from the west coast.
Below are the selected flights:
From San Jose, CA
From San Deigo, CA
If you are flexible with your plans and you are looking for a trip during March then this could be a decent option. A roundtrip from San Jose to Maui in economy would cost around $323 per person.
So is this a good price or would using British.Airways Avios be better?
Well, for a roundtrip from these cities to Hawaii, it would only cost you 25k Avios (plus taxes) in economy and you get more flexibility in your travel dates. You could even book Alaska flights with Avios so in theory you could book the same sample flight above.
Now booking Alaska flights with Avios can be a process so you have to be patient but here are the steps:
To search for availability for Alaska award flights, you have to use the American Airlines booking website. I searched for San Jose to Maui and found plenty of MileSaver space which are the boxes highlighted in light green (which in this case is the whole month). Ignore the points cost on this site as this is not what you will be charged.
I selected the dates I wanted and found the Alaska flights I wanted which are designated with “AS” in front of the flight number.
Next you will have to call British.Airways at 1-800-247-9297 between 7am and 11pm EST. It may take what seems like forever to get an agent, but when you do, tell the agent you would like to book a partner flight with Avios and give them all the flight details. They will then book you the flight and deduct 25k Avios from your account. There is a $25 booking fee but if you tell the agent that you can’t book it online, they can waive the fee but YMMV.
So now you have some options but If you are able to make these Alaska fares work for you, then they are decent in my opinion.
I love flying to Hawaii with Alaska and Avios miles are by far the cheapest way to do it! You can use Avios miles and then pay just $150 day off to upgrade to first! And the best part is, the upgraded fares will credit to AA as an economy class ticket!
Nice I didn’t know about the upgraded fare part. I live in the center of the country so it takes double the time for me to get to Hawaii. Thanks for the tip!