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A Vacation to Hawaii With No Ticket Back. Crazy or Brilliant?

ByThe Miles Professor

Svetlana is headed to Hawaii for Thanksgiving and has a non-stop flight booked from Los Angeles to Honolulu. The catch: She doesn’t have a ticket back!

Here’s how it happened. I knew she’s been wanting to visit her friend in Hawaii for a while. When Citi ThankYou points became transferable to Singapore Airlines, I really wanted to try out the whole booking process and happened to find a non-stop flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu with low level award availability on United. This cost 17,500 Singapore Airlines miles + around $8 in taxes so I went ahead and booked… she’s quite easy going and doesn’t mind going on vacation with just a one-way ticket. So what about the ticket back?

Honolulu
Honolulu

The current options are not that good.

We checked availability on United Airlines, American Airlines, Delta and there’s no low level award availability whatsoever. That’s really not surprising considering Sunday is a very popular travel day and the weekend after Thanksgiving is a popular travel time. At this point, the best option is to pay 45,000 United Airlines miles for a non-stop Sunday morning flight, which is definitely convenient, but that’s a lot of miles. It may may sense to lock in a “safety option” at this point. Something is better than nothing, right? Well, not necessarily…

United Airlines space for 45,000 miles each way
United Airlines space for 45,000 miles each way

Airlines will often open up award seats close to departure.

To be honest, I kind of feel like the best Saver award availability comes up 48 to 24 hours before the flight. At that point, the seats that are unsold are likely to be left empty and the airlines may as well give them away with miles. This is why I always check flight availability the night before I leave for vacation or the day before I am about to return. This year, I switched my parents to a non-stop flight back from Vienna on our second to last day of vacation and Svetlana switched to a non-stop flight back from London the same way. I honestly cannot remember a far-away vacation, in fact, when I didn’t change at least one of my flights while I was gone as the flights become so much better a day or two before. I certainly did last year in Milan as well as when I was in Hawaii last year awaiting my ongoing trip to Asia.

In all these situations, we already had our “safety options” locked in. Again, Svetlana has nothing.

What’s the plan, really?

Since Svetlana is flying to Hawaii on Wednesday night, she is hoping to return Sunday morning or Saturday night. So her strategy is going to be to wait until Friday in Hawaii or Saturday morning and look at her options. The downside is many airlines charge a close-in booking fee when booking so close to departure. American Airlines and United Airlines both charge $75 fees when you book an award with a departing flight is to occur within 21 days. Fortunately, these airlines both have partners that will allow her to circumvent these fees and get an even better deal with the miles.

Here’s what she’s hoping for:

British Airways miles can be redeemed on American Airlines flights provided American Airlines has low level SAAver award availability. Because British Airways uses a distance based award chart, it only costs 12,50o British Airways miles + $5.60 to fly from Honolulu to Los Angeles in Economy and no close-in booking fee. If award space opens up, she’ll transfer British Airways miles from Chase Ultimate Rewards.  You can read my tutorial: West Coast to Hawaii for 12,500 British Airways Avios Each Way!

Singapore Airlines miles can be redeemed on United Airlines flights provided United Airlines has low level Saver award space as well. This will cost 17,500 Singapore Airlines Krisflyer miles + $8 from Honolulu to Los Angeles and Singapore Airlines also does not charge a close-in booking fee. If space on United Airlines opens up, she’ll transfer miles from Citi ThankYou points.

Worst case scenario:

Of course Svetlana is not going on vacation with no idea of a return plan whatsoever so we’ve already assessed a worst case scenario. It may not be great, but it’s there. In case there’s really no low level award space, holders of the United Explorer Card are actually able to book the last seat in Economy at the standard rate. This mean, she can always pay 45,000 United miles + $75 close in booking fee for a non-stop flight from Honolulu to Los Angeles and she can book it last minute. Of course, that’s not a very good price at all and hopefully it won’t come to that. However, if every once in a blue moon, you end up paying the standard award rate, it’s not the end of the world… after all, we have our miles so we can travel and enjoy life!

When taking chances, you really have to assess your worst option. And this is in terms of every cost, not just monetary. If you’re the type of person who will be stressed out on vacation without a ticket back, then it may be best to lock in a safety option ahead of time and just not worry about it. Svetlana, on the other hand, doesn’t get stressed out by such things and I’m sure she’ll have a great vacation regardless… so hopefully, she’ll get a good deal on her ticket too!

29 Comments

  1. So are you able to cancel your existing award flights the day before departure without any penalty?

      1. Thanks for the reply.

        I am looking in to making AA award reservations for Peru this Summer. So as per your strategy, I can book the tickets now, and if I find better tickets later, I can always change them without any charge. If the changes occur 21 days before departure, I only have to pay 75$?

          1. I don’t see it in the deleted messages so I don’t think I did it by accident. I have a fairly active Spam filter so it could have ended up there by mistake. Can you try to repost it?

  2. She can also book a ticket using TYPs, the value of which for AA or US 1.6c per point, also Cahse UR gives you a value of 1.25c per point. Maybe a cheaper option than transferring miles.

      1. Try Allegiant Air. It’s $398 right now. Should be 31840 points. Even if paying cash it’s gonna be cheaper than 40k points.

          2. That will be the best option for what will be available in the worst case scenario if she waits until she is in Hawaii to book the ticket back and no low level space opens up. That’s still true despite which revenue tickets are available today.

  3. Your choice of subjects is perfectly timed. I am going to HNL on 11-28 with no return ticket back to MSY. The flight to HNL is the result of a free hold over from a trip back from Italy last May. Currently there is no Business/First available and hopefully you are correct about United opening it at the last minute. Based on Ben’s recent AA issues I do not trust them to do the same.

  5. She can always stay with me longer… hehe But you two should check if she can do something with Hawaiian Airlines miles? They can be transferred in from a bunch of companies and allow buying of miles that often is cheaper than a ticket as they have no blackout times, I think it is around 20k miles one way. Allegiant also often has cheap cash tix- I paid $135 each way for one of my flights to LA this spring. :)

  6. I did this last year. My family and I traveled to Oahu the week after Christmas, but I didn’t have a flight back. We ended up flying back on New Year’s Eve, but the ticket was booked when we were already in Hawaii!

      1. I also have a lot of Citi points, but I’m not earning them that much as before, lately. On the other hand, I earn a lot of Chase UR lately. How do you earn Citi TYPs now?

          1. Hey MP, I still have the 5x card too and understand having too many for travel purposes. I’m generating ~800k/mo out here on Long Island. A good option is to sell them. I know a place that pays 1.275/point. That effectively gives you the Prestige rate on flight redemption (except for AA/USA) but with ultimate flexibility in what you actually spend on. Drop me a line if you want to get the contact info.

  8. It ads to the experience…
    Did it myself…
    Ended up booking last min with friends united acc… who had club card…

  9. You are the BEST!!! After reading this post (the part about how you always check for better flights a day before your flight), I checked online, found one better flight, and then called American Airlines to attempt to change a particularly crummy [very technical word, eh?] miles award flight (for 4 people, no less!) from St. Louis to Naples, Italy, on October 16.

    I will get a little detailed here, but I think you like detail. We went from a 3-flight journey that left at 7 a.m. (this means I have to be up and out of the house by 4:30 a.m. as we have a one-hour drive to our airport, have to park, and shuttle over), had a 7-hour layover in Chicago and a 6-hour layover in Berlin, to arrive in Naples at 3:00 p.m. TO a flight that leaves at 9:40 a.m., still three flights but the layovers are 5 1/2 hours in Philadelphia and 3 hours in Munich, and arrive in Naples at 1:30 p.m. OMG, this is so much better!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!! Oh, it did cost 70 cents per person in additional cost. LOL. (FYI: I NEVER knew this was a possibility and my husband and I have taken a lot of crummy flights with huge layovers. You have made my travel life immeasurably better with this one post!!)

    1. Wow, that’s great! And I’m so glad it helped make your trip easier. American Airlines is very good for this – as long as you’re still using oneworld carriers and keeping the origin and destination the same, award changes are free so it’s always good to check for better routings, especially close to departure. Have a great time in Italy!

  10. nice post. Just had a question about you re-booking your parents’ flight back home. I assume you had already booked them with points or whatever, so when you switched them to the non-stop flight, they charge a fee for that, right?

    1. It depends on the airline. American Airlines does not charge any fee as long as you keep the origin and destination the same and stay on oneworld carriers. My parents did have to pay a fee to change their United flights at $75 a ticket, but they no longer had to connect through Germany so they saved the connection taxes and lots of time – so the $100 or so extra they paid overall was well worth it for them.

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