West Coast to Hawaii for 12,500 British Airways Avios Each Way!
If you’re lucky enough to live on the West Coast, you can take advantage of one of my favorite British Airways Avios award travel opportunities: Flights to Hawaii on American Airlines or Alaska airlines for just 12,500 each way! That’s 25,000 miles for a round trip ticket. Most airlines charge that for a round trip ticket in mainland US, except you’ll get to use your miles for a trip to Hawaii!
Hawaii is an expensive destination for our most well-known miles programs. Unless you use a clever trick like adding free one-ways on American Airlines or United Airlines, you’ll often be paying at least 20,000 each way for an economy award:
- American Airlines: 22,500 AAdvantage miles each way during high season, 17,500 miles each way during low season.
- US Airways: 40,000 Dividend Miles round trip only.
- United Airlines: 20,000 Mileage Plus miles each way.
- Delta Airlines: 40,000 SkyMiles round trip.
- Alaska Airlines: At least 20,000 miles each way depending on whether you are flying Alaska Airlines, American Airlines or Delta Airlines.
What’s interesting is that, for many cities on the West Coast, Hawaii is not much further than New York. The flight from LAX to New York is 2,442 miles and the flight from LAX to Honolulu is 2,556 miles. Yet American Airlines AAdvantage will charge you 22,500 miles each way for the flight to Hawaii in high season and only 12,500 for the flight to New York. Almost twice as much!
Fortunately, the British Airways Executive Club award chart will only charge based on the distance of the individual segments. Moreover, British Airways Avios can be redeemed on partners American Airlines and Alaska Airlines. Both have an extensive network with decent award availability between Hawaii and the West Coast.
Booking with British Airways Avios not only lets us save miles when flying short distances, but they do not charge a fee for award bookings less than 21 days in advance as many other airlines do. Since partner airlines do often release award space close to departure dates in case flights have empty seats, British Airways lets us take advantage of that last minute availability.
British Airways Award Chart
British Airways charges for each segment you fly and lets you redeem Avios miles with partners. These include oneworld partners as well as Alaska Airlines, which happens to not be a member of oneworld, but is a partner of British Airways. If you find an economy non-stop on American Airlines or Alaska Airlines from Los Angeles to any of the Hawaiian islands like Oahu, Maui or Hawaii, you will pay only 12,500 British Airways Avios each way. That’s because the flight would fall into the 2000-2999 miles band.
If you have multiple segments in your itinerary, you pay for each segment. For example, if you’re flying on American from Dallas to Honolulu with a stop in Los Angeles, you will pay separately 7,500 miles from Dallas to Los Angeles and 12,500 miles from Los Angeles to Honolulu. The value of British Airways Avios on longer trips with multiple stops quickly deteriorates, but for short direct flights, the British Airways Avios award chart is certainly a gem.
Earning British Airways Executive Club Avios
- Transfer from Starwood Preferred Guest at 1:1 or get 25,000 British Airways miles for every 20,000 Starwood Preferred Guest points transferred. These can be earned with the Starwood American Express card.
- Transfer from American Express Membership rewards at 1:1.
- Transfer from Chase Ultimate Rewards at 1:1.
- The Chase British Airways Visa Signature® Card co-branded credit card.
Redeem British Airways Executive Club Avios on American Airlines or Alaska Airlines
British Airways Avios can be redeemed on American Airlines and Alaska Airlines.
Here is a list of all directly flights between the West Coast and Hawaii costing only 12,500 British Airways Avios each way when flying Economy (or 37,500 Avios when flying First Class)
- Los Angeles: Honolulu, Maui, Big Island and Kauai on American Airlines
- Oakland: Honolulu, Maui, Big Island and Kauai on Alaska Airlines
- Portland: Honolulu, Maui, Big Island and Kauai on Alaska Airlines
- San Diego: Honolulu, Maui and Kauai on Alaska Airlines
- San Jose: Honolulu, Maui, Big Island and Kauai on Alaska Airlines
- Seattle: Honolulu, Maui and Kauai on Alaska Airlines
- Anchorage: Honolulu, Maui and Big Island on Alaska Airlines
- Bellingham: Honolulu and Maui on Alaska Airlines
And here is a handy table:
Don’t forget, if traveling from a different city, you can still use British Airways Avios and fly to Hawaii. You’ll just have to pay more miles for your flights to one of the cities on the list. Refer to the chart above for pricing.
Searching For Award Availability
Even though you’re using British Airways Avios, it is best to search for availability on the American Airlines website.
While British Airways will display flights on American Airlines, their award search will only show one day at a time. The British Airways search engine will not show Alaska Airlines award availability at all. The American Airlines search engine will actually show a calendar view for both airlines so you can quickly see award level availability for a month at a time.
You can book Alaska Airlines award flights with British Airways Avios by calling British Airways customer service. For a full overview of more ways to use British Airways Avios on Alaska Airlines, see the post: Redeeming British Airways Avios on Alaska Airlines
To search for award availability, visit the American Airlines website and type in your destination and dates. Make sure to check Redeem Miles.
Summer is definitely high travel season to Hawaii, but I will see what I can find in June for a trip from Los Angeles to Honolulu. Let’s see below what turns up.
When looking at the calendar availability, you want to specifically look for award availability that is light green. This is the SAAver level for American Airines awards, which is what you want. Light green is the award space you want to look for.. Not dark green, not light blue, not dark blue. Dark green and dark blue are AAnytime awards and will not be available with British Airways miles. Light blue awards are available with British Airways Avios, but will cost 37,500 Avios each way for a direct flight.
For my dates, I will select June 14 and June 19 and I’ll see which flights are available. For the flight to Honolulu, there is a direct flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu leaving in the morning. Perfect! I’ll write down the flight number. I’m going to need it in the next step.
On the return, two flights are available. While I can book either with British Airways Avios as they are on partners American Airlines and Alaska Airlines, I want the direct flight. It’s more convenient and will cost fewer miles as I will have to pay for each segment. So that’s Flight 283 on the way back.
Be careful. Some of the low-level award availability may be on Hawaiian Airlines. While Hawaiian Airlines is a partner of American Airlines, you cannot use your British Airways Avios on Hawaiian Airlines. So those flights are off limits!
Having selected our flight on the American Airlines search engine, we are now ready to book!
Booking the Award Flight with British Airways Avios
Depending on whether you are flying American Airlines or Alaska Airlines, the booking process with British Airways Avios is different. With American Airlines, you can book online on the British Airways website. However, with Alaska Airlines, you will have to call.
American Airlines: Any eligible award you find on American Airlines can be booked right online with the British Airways website. With flight information in hand, you can visit the British Airways Executive Club Avios booking website and log in with your id and password.
On the next page, put in your dates and destinations.
Of course, as expected, the flight we want appear. No surprise there as we already checked availability!
After I select my flights, I can see they price at 25,000 British Airways Avios + $5.00. Booked and done!
Alaska Airlines: For Alaska Airlines awards, you cannot book them online. You will actually have to call customer service and give them the flight numbers. The customer service numbers by country are listed on this page.
I very strongly recommend finding the exact flights you want before calling and not relying on the agent to find them for you. While agents do work for the airline, all kinds of mishaps can happen. Some may not know that Alaska Airlines is a partner or you can book award seats with them. If you know the exact flights you want are available, the process will go much smoother.
Once you call, just give them the days and flight numbers you’ve selected. Since the British Airways award chart is very straightforward, they should have no problem pricing the award. Just remember, your flights have to be at the SAAver level on the American Airlines website. British Airways does assess a phone booking fee. However, since your award was not actually bookable online, you can ask them to waive the fee. In my experience, they often comply with the request.
Good luck planning your trip to Hawaii!
thanks for the info.
I am glad I found this website :)
But here’s my question. I have lots of Avios points. I tried your advice of searching on AA.com first before booking on BA.com, but with no luck. I am able to find flights from ORD to SJC on AA.com for 25K but when trying the same date/origin/destination on BA.com I don’t get anything within +/- 3 days of my preferred date. Have you tried it recently?
Also do you know if there’s a better time in the day to search (for example a cut-off date for cancelled reservations that may be opening up more seats?).
Thanks…
When you are looking at the seats for 25k, are they AAnytime seats or SAAver seats? BA will only let you book seats at SAAver level, for which economy seats cost 12.5k AA miles. Also, BA will only display AA seats on its website and will not display any Alaska Airlines inventory on its website.
Depending on route, I have sometimes seen seats open up on AA a few days before and been able to book them on BA as BA does not charge a close-in booking fee. It depends on how sold out the flight is. If there are lots of seats open, they may sometimes go to award seats. Though it’s hard to rely on this when you want to make definite plans…
Thanks for the quick response. You are right, I can see now how it works with SAAver seats (unfortunately not available on the date I need them but will keep trying). Will BA also display Business/First SAAVer if available? These seats cost 25K.
Glad it’s working! Yes, BA should display any AA flights you can find at the SAAver level.
Thanks for all the help, just a quick question though. On the link to booking with with Alaska Air lines it states that it takes 20,000 avios to fly to hawaii. Did i misunderstand that part? Also, can if i did misread and it is only 12,500 points can i still get such a deal flying out from sacramento? thanks again
For this post, it is not using Alaska Airlines miles. It is using British Airways miles and the British Airways award chart will charge by distance regardless of airline. So do not look at the Alaska Airlines website. Also, yes, if you can find a direct flight from Sacramento to Hawaii at low level award availability on Alaska Airlines, you can use British Airways miles to book it for 12,500. I accidentally left Sacramento off my list… need to fix that!
Thanks for great tips!
As you mentioned in handy table, there is direct flight from SJC to Kona by Alaska airline. I have searched american airline website and am not able to find a direct flight.
I have searched for the week of Sep 27–Oct 5th. There are several flights take 1 stop at seattle and return flight take stop at LAX.
Did I miss anything? or the direct flight is only open for a certain timeframe.
Not all flights are always available for award booking. These are capacity controlled by Alaska Airlines so the direct flights may just not be available for your dates at the low level award price.
doesn’t seem to work for me. tried booking LAX to OGG on 6/22/2014 or 6/23/2014 – AA shows the reward available, but BA says: “Sorry, there are no flights available on Monday 23 June 2014.You can:
use the tabs or links above to check availability on another date
search again using another date or class”
any ideas?
I just looked myself and do not see any AA SAAver (light green) flights direct from LAX to OGG. There is a business class available on 6/22/2013, which I can also see when I look on the BA.com website in first class. So everything is working as expected, as far as I can see.
just tried again, AA has light green 22.5k mile award flights on 5/28/2014 from LAX to OGG, but get the same error message at BA:
Sorry, there are no flights available on Wednesday 28 May 2014.You can:
use the tabs or links above to check availability on another date
search again using another date or class
not sure what i am doing wrong.
found it, wasn’t clicking on the non-stop option. sorry. got it now
Thanks for the great directions for booking a flight using my Avios! I’m trying to book for my family, including an infant. The only problem I’m having is that I would like to book a seat for my infant, as opposed to having him in my lap the whole time. I have the points and all, but don’t see an option to book a seat for him, the website automatically assumes he would be a lap rider. Any tips? I hope I don’t have to call…
Hi, glad you find it useful! I am unfortunately completely unfamiliar with infant booking rules (haven’t dealt with that yet).
Thanks very much for the info! Do you know whether Alaska’s SMF-OGG flights can be booked with Avios? According to Alaska’s website, there is available award space, but American’s site does not recognize it. Which system does BA follow?
Alaska Airlines has a few different levels of award space. The space it makes available to partners is at the lowest level only (Super Saver Coach) and that’s the space American Airlines and BA can access. They cannot access Choice Coach, for example, which Alaska Airlines will charge 27.5k miles each way. Super Saver Coach charges 20k Alaska Airlines miles each way.
Thank you for your well written blog. I was able to use Avios points that have been sitting idle for a couple years.
I’m trying to book SAN-LIH on 2/13/14-2/19/14 but no Alaska flights show up when I search these dates on the AA website. Does that mean there are no award flights available for those dates or am I doing something wrong? Thanks!
No problem. I took a quick look. There are no AS flights on 2/13/14, but there is one on 2/19/14 (in business and economy).
Do you know of a way to convert Alaska Air miles to Avios? I have a lot of AS miles but would prefer to use less miles to get to Hawaii.
You cannot convert them into Avios, unfortunately.
Which CC is the best one to get to earn British Airways avios? I’m a beginner to this, both hubby and I have good credit and looking to get our first CC with miles bonus. Family of 5 that fly once/year to Hawaii.
I would recommend either the British Airways credit card (personal card) for 50,000 miles after spending $2,000 or the Chase Ink Bold card (business card) for 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points after spending $5,000. Although the Chase Ink Bold has a higher spending requirement, the points transfer at 1:1 to British Airways or other partners such as United or Hyatt so they are a bit more flexible. The British Airways Visa earns 1.25 miles per dollar spent on all purchases, but the Chase Ink Bold has more bonus categories. As an example, they have 5 points per dollar at Office Supply stores, for cable and internet and 2 points per dollar at gas stations. The right card depends on your situation and spending patterns :) I just went to Hawaii and it was great!
Thank you so much! I am loving your blog (just a little overwhelmed) :)
Great Blog! One quick observation, in your ” Handy Chart “,you show Kauai pared with Kihei; Kihei is an area on Maui, The airport on Kauai is Lihue, LIH.
Thanks for catching that typo!
Dear MP:
I already own the BA card, thanks to you. But, can I use my Avios points towards getting a hotel in Hawaii?
I have no Starwood, Fairmont, etc cards.
Second:
I’ve almost spent $30,000. on my BA card so I’ll stop using it soon. I have the Amex card you suggested which I use to transfer $2500 in spending to $50 in my Fidelity account.
What do you suggest as the best card deal now?
Your terrific! Keep up the great work.
Victor
LAX to HNL on AVIOS is no longer available. When I search on AA website, it shows HA, not American Airline. I go back to BA website to book then no flight available. I guess the deal is dead. No more 12,500 points from LAX to HNL
It’s definitely still available! In fact, the first date I checked randomly, it was there. Check May 9.
Just wanted to say thank you for all the informative posts. I just booked a flight for 3 from LAX to LIH using Avios on AA for 25000 points and $5 each. Plus I transferred SPG points so it only cost me 60K points total! I used your strategy in this post. I would have never knew you could do this if it weren’t for you. You saved me a lot of money and points, Keep up the good work
I am having a hard time finding direct flights from SeaTac to Maui that fall into the 20K Alaska points category. I’m wondering if it’s best/easier to fly to LAX, not necessarily using Avios, and then use my Avios to go from LAX to Maui on American. Of course I’d rather fly direct from Seatac, but I’m not having any luck. Am I correct in finding it to be difficult to find Alaska flights out of SeaTac to Maui? Also wondering how far in advance you can book AS/AA flights through BA? Does BA’s access to those flights come available as AA/AS’s flight schedule is released? Or do they only get access to flights in the near future? I like to plan out as far in advance as I can. And I’ll be booking for 4-5 people. Is that an unrealistic number of seats when looking at availability through BA? Thank you so much for your help and information! This is a great post!
I have 250k miles and want to book 10 tickets from LAX to Maui or Kauai for next June. When is the best time to do this? I have read elsewhere that they release tickets 331 days in advance – is this the case? Will I be charged an extra fee for making phone reservations, though it’s my only option? Will they allow me to purchase an additional ticket for travel with the avios 10? Any ideas what availability looks like fo rthat many people? I realize you may not know these answers, but any help if greatly appreciated!
I’m looking into booking our flights (2 adults, 2 child, and 1 infant on lap) from San Jose to Oahu on 3/6/15-3/13/15. I found direct flights through Alaska and is showing up as MileSaaver on the AA site so it is bookable and it is available using avios points for 12,500 one way. I double checked the availability on the Alaska site and lots of seats are still opened. But one problem I noticed is when I check 1 passenger, the flights shows up as available, but if I select 3 or more passengers the flight is no longer available. It’s doing that on both AA website, the AS flight will be gone, and on Alaska website, it will go from 20k to 30k points, which is then not redeemable through BA. But the seating chart on Alaska show most of the seats as available still. So not sure why this is happening. Am I going to be able to book all the tickets for my family through BA?
Unfortunately, you are only able to book the lowest award level on Alaska Airlines through BA. These are the same flights you’ll see on AA. So those higher priced award flights, while Alaska Airlines, is willing to sell them for a lot more miles in its own program, it hasn’t made them available to partners. The ones you want would be at the 20k award level with Alaska Airlines.
Thanks for responding. I did find the tickets on the lowest award level on Alaska Airlines for 2 passengers (20k). If I select 4 passengers, the award level will go up to 30k. But yet the flights are showing a lot in availability on the seating chart. So I’m not sure why the award changes when I change the amount of passengers. Not sure if anyone is experiencing the same problem. Or I might just try calling BA to see if the flights for 5 people are showing up as available through Alaska Airlines.
It sounds like only two awards are available at the lowest level. If you want to book four, it takes them from the next level up in the award chart, where many more are available.
Thank you for the info. on using Avios to fly to Maui non-stop from LAX to OGG in Maui. I just booked two round trip tickets using 50,000 Avios and $22.40 for coach class tickets. Thanks again! :-)
That’s great! I really like Maui… have a nice time there :)
Can book a one way flight to Hawaii using Avios, then do an inter island hop, and then book another one way flight from that island back to the west coast?
Yes you can!