Buy HawaiianMiles with a bonus, redeem for premium flights
Now through May 21, 2025, get a bonus of up to 50% when you buy or gift Hawaiian Airlines miles. You can use this promotion to purchase enough miles to buy premium award flights at a (sometimes huge) discount.
The recent merger between Hawaiian Airlines and Alaska Airlines opens up even more opportunities for high-value mile redemptions. In this article, we’ve included an example for booking a business class award flight to Japan for thousands of dollars below the cash price.
Two of the great things about “buy miles” bonus offers like these are ease and accessibility: you don’t need a travel credit card or be a points expert to participate, and it takes just a few minutes to load up your miles balance.
But, is this Hawaiian Airlines buy miles offer worth it? Let’s dive into the details and analyze when purchasing miles might make sense for your travel goals.
HawaiianMiles Sale Details
This Hawaiian Airlines buy miles bonus offer is tiered: the more miles you buy, the more you save. Miles purchases must be completed by May 21, 2025 (11:59pm HST) to be eligible to receive the bonus. Here’s how the tiers break down:
- Buy 1,000 – 2,000 miles: No bonus
- Buy 3,000 – 9,000 miles: 30% bonus
- Buy 10,000 – 19,000 miles: 40% bonus
- Buy 20,000 – 100,000 miles: 50% bonus
To get the maximum 50% bonus, you’ll need to purchase at least 20,000 miles. Normally, Hawaiian Airlines sells miles for 2.5 cents each. The 50% bonus brings the cost down to just 1.87¢ per mile.
Miles are available in increments of 1,000 miles for purchases up to 60,000 miles, and in increments of 5,000 miles for purchases between 65,000 and 100,000 base miles per transaction. Your account has an annual limit of 150,000 base miles acquired through Points.com (which processes these transactions) per calendar year, whether you purchase them yourself or they are gifted to you. Importantly, bonus miles that you buy do not count towards this 150,000-mile annual cap.
Purchased miles, including the bonus, are typically credited to the recipient’s HawaiianMiles account instantly upon completion of the transaction, although it may take several hours in some cases All transactions are non-refundable.
The Option to Gift Hawaiian Airlines Miles
This promotion isn’t just good for boosting your own balance; you can also gift Hawaiian Airlines miles with up to a 50% bonus to friends or family who are HawaiianMiles members. The same bonus tiers and pricing apply to gifted miles. Remember that when you give HawaiianMiles to another member, the miles will count towards the recipient’s 150,000 base mile annual limit.
Is Buying HawaiianMiles Worth It, Even with a Bonus?
Buying HawaiianMiles at 1.87¢ per mile represents a discount of about 25% off the normal price. As such, it’s higher than many valuations. When trying to determine how much Hawaiian Airlines miles are worth, it’s typical to see values of 0.9 – 1.0 cent per mile, based on average redemption values. This means buying miles speculatively, without a specific redemption in mind, is generally not advisable.
However, there are a few scenarios where buying miles during a sale like this can be worth it:
- Topping Off Your Account: If you’re just a few thousand miles short of a desired award redemption, buying the necessary miles to top off your account can be a very efficient way to instantly unlock that flight, without having to earn more miles through activities like credit card spending.
- Replacing Expensive Cash Fares: The best reason to buy miles is when the cost of the purchased miles required for an award ticket is significantly less than the cash price of that same flight. This is often the case for premium cabin travel or sometimes for economy flights on high-demand routes or dates.
- Leveraging the Alaska Airlines Partnership: The recent merger and the 1:1 transfer capability between HawaiianMiles and Alaska Mileage Plan miles fundamentally change the value proposition. Buying HawaiianMiles with a bonus is now a good way to acquire Alaska miles, opening up redemptions on Alaska’s extensive network and its diverse range of global partners.
Find the Sweet Spot: High-Value HawaiianMiles Redemptions
The most valuable award redemptions for HawaiianMiles are international business class flights, either on Hawaiian Airlines or one of its partners. For example, you can often find great deals on Hawaiian Airlines flights between Honolulu and Sydney, Australia or Auckland, New Zealand.
The partnership between HawaiianMiles and Alaska Airlines’ Mileage Plan progam allows free 1:1 transfers, which opens up a whole other world of possibilities. In this example, we’ll show you how to use this Hawaiian Airlines buy miles bonus offer to save thousands on Japan Airlines business class flights. For this approach to work, you must have active HawaiianMiles and Mileage Plan accounts and they must be linked together.
Step 1: Find suitable award flights. Since cheap award flights disappear quickly, it’s a good idea to have several options lined up before you buy the miles. For this example, we found flights from Honolulu to Tokyo for 60,000 miles plus $19 (on the Alaska Airlines website).
Step 2: Buy the miles using the Hawaiian Airlines bonus offer. You can purchase 60,000 miles for $1,120.90, including taxes and fees. Here’s the link to the offer.
Step 3: Compare the cash price. The cash price for a comparable Japan Airlines business class fare is $9,040 on the JAL website. Even the cheapest business class fare, which has fees for changes and doesn’t allow refunds, is over $2,000. As you can see, this is looking like a great deal. See how we compare cash vs. award fares.
Step 4: Transfer the HawaiianMiles to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan.Use the transfer portal to sign into your HawaiianMiles and Mileage Plan accounts and transfer the miles.
Step 5. Purchase the award flight. Visit the Alaska Airlines website, log into your Mileage Plan account, find the award flight as you did in step 1 and purchase it using the miles you just transferred.
Key Considerations Before You Buy
Before you jump on this Hawaiian Airlines Miles sale, here are a few crucial points for the sophisticated traveler:
- Check Award Availability FIRST: Always confirm that the award seats you want are actually available for your desired dates and routes before you purchase miles. Use the Hawaiian Airlines website or call their customer service to search for award space. For Alaska partner awards, search on the Alaska Airlines website or call Mileage Plan.
- Purchases are Non-Refundable: Be certain of your plans before buying, as you cannot get your money back – although you should be able to find other high-value redepmtion opportunities for the purchased miles.
- Factor in Taxes and Fees: Remember that in addition to the cost of buying miles, you will also pay applicable taxes and fees on award tickets, though these are generally much lower than the cash price of a ticket.
How We Compare: Understanding the True Value of Award Redemptions
When we talk about whether buying miles is “worth it,” and especially when we highlight high-value redemption examples, it’s important to understand how we approach the comparison between using miles and paying cash. It’s not always as simple as comparing the cost of buying miles to the cheapest available cash ticket.
When we evaluate the value of using miles for an award redemption, particularly for premium cabins or on programs that offer flexible award tickets, we benchmark against cash fares that provide a comparable level of flexibility.
Think about it this way: the cheapest cash tickets often come with significant restrictions. They might be non-refundable, charge hefty fees for changes, or not allow changes at all. Award tickets booked through a program like Alaska Mileage Plan (which you can fund by transferring HawaiianMiles) are, for the most part, highly flexible – allowing you to change dates or cancel and redeposit your miles without penalty (beyond the small, nonrefundable partner booking fee).
A cash ticket offering that same level of flexibility – one that is fully refundable and allows changes without fees – is invariably priced significantly higher than its restrictive counterparts. By using a flexible award ticket, you are essentially gaining this valuable flexibility without paying the premium cash price for it.
Therefore, while you might see lower cash fares advertised, those often represent a very different product in terms of terms and conditions. When we calculate the “value” of an award redemption in monetary terms, we are comparing the cost of acquiring and using the miles to the cost of buying a cash ticket that provides a similar, flexible travel option. This comparison most accurately reflects the “sweet spot” where the miles not only get you the seat but also the flexibility you might need, at a price far below the equivalent cash fare.
You might also like:
- More air travel and airline offers
- Air travel tips
- Hotel deals and bonus offers
- Car rental tips
- Car rental deals & discounts
- Subscribe for deal & tips straight to your inbox
