I spent most of my New Year’s Eve watching college football and booking a summer trip to Maui for my best friend’s family. In the process, I discovered that there are as many as SEVEN award seats available to Hawaii on Alaska Airlines from the West Coast. Act now if you want to take your family to Hawaii this summer!
West coast cities that Alaska flies nonstop to Hawaii
| From/To | Oahu | Maui | Kauai | Big Island |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oakland, CA | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| San Jose, CA | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| San Diego, CA | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sacramento, CA | No | Yes | No | No |
| Seattle, WA | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Portland, OR | Yes | Yes | Seasonal | Seasonal |
| Anchorage, AK | Yes | Seasonal | No | Seasonal |
| Bellingham, WA | No | Seasonal | No | Seasonal |
Many dates available during peak summer months!
I searched award seats from the bay area to Maui during the peak summer months including June, July and August. There aren’t many dates available from my preferred San Jose airport, but date are wide open from Oakland, even for 7 people!
Here are a few tips to keep in mind when you search online:
- You can search up to 7 seats.
- Naturally, availability is better if you need fewer than 7 seats.
- Click on any date labelled 17.5k to see if nonstop flight is available.
- Best availability seems to be between Oakland, Portland, Seattle and Maui.
Book nonstop flights using 12,500 British Airways Avios!
[SEE: Use Avios to your advantage for a family trip ]
If award seats are available on nonstop flight, use 12,500 British Airways Avios to book! There is one catch. You can’t book Alaska award on British Airways website, Instead, you have to call in, but it is easy if you follow the tip I wrote last week. [ SEE: Don’t call the US British Airways phone number! – try this instead ] And be sure to ask for the Alaska Airlines confirmation number, which you will need to select seats on Alaska’s website.
If you live along the west coast but not in any of the cities listed in the table above, you might still be able to find the low level award seats for 17,500 Alaska miles. For example, I was able to find 4 seats from Salt Lake City and Las Vegas to Maui, though dates are very limited. Alaska recently announced new changes to its award chart, pretty much gone distance based. And remember, Alaska awards allows a free stopover, so you can add a few days in Seattle or the Bay Area, before or after your Hawaii vacation!
Will you be taking your family to Hawaii this summer? If you do end up in Maui, be sure to visit my favorite restaurant on the island – Mama’s Fish House. The food is fabulous!
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
I need a trip to Oahu the end of July first of August for 9. We can do 7 and 2. I have southwest points and Alaska and chase. Would like to leave and return to salt lake but an go from California then Hawaii . Is this do able and how would I go about it?
I don’t know the exact dates you need. But yes it is totally doable. Do you have at least 225,000 Chase points? I have a post coming out tomorrow related to Hawaii. Check it out. If you go with Alaska, you will have use Southwest to get you to bay area or Portland, then use Avios (transfer from Chase) to get to Hawaii. If you need help in detail, let me know, I will be glad to help you out!
I have tried to get through to the British Airways in hopes of using my Avios to fly on American Airways from Los Angeles, CA to Maui. The fist time I called the British Airways number, they told me there were no rewards seats available on the “day” I wanted to fly. And I was calling about flights 4 months out. I had already checked the American Airways and confirmed there were reward seats using AA miles. But British Airways said no. The second time I tried the British number, I was on hold for 4 hours and finally gave up. Is there a better way to get the British Airways to let you use the Avios on the AA flights? What good are the Avios rewards if you (1) can’t reach the people who make the reservations and (2) if British Airways doesn’t ever have available rewards flights?
You don’t need to call BA to book AA-operated flights. You should be able to book easily on britishairways.com as long as “economy saver” award seats (those labelled 22500 miles one-way) are available on AA-operated flights. They cannot have any Alaska-operated flights (for example, AA flight LAX to SJC, then AS flight SJC to OGG, cannot be booked on BA website, you would have to call BA)
If you already have a BA Executive Club membership account (where you keep the avios), just log in and search for your date. If you don’t have an account yet, then sign up, do the search under “Redeem Avios”. If seats are available for 12,500 avios, immediately transfer the points from Chase (1:1 ratio) or Amex (1:0.8 ratio). Transfer is instant, so just sign out BA and sign back in, you will see the avios there. Only transfer avios from Chase or Amex when you are ready to book!
If at some point you need to call BA, don’t call the US number. Follow the tip I gave in the post instead.
Let me know if you have more questions.
Have you seen our post on how to call the BA call center phone number in Hong Kong to save on hold times?
I want to fly to Hawaii in Business Class from the east coast (Charleston, Atlanta, Charlotte, Jacksonville, Orlando). How would I do that using either, or a combination of, Avios and/or Alaska miles?
Unfortunately, first class awards to Hawaii is much harder to find, whether you are flying from east coast or west cost.
1) You will not want to use Avios because it is distance-based and can be 4 times of the economy award;
2) Alaska and AA both require 40K miles one-way, if you can find availability. My experience is that Alaska only release 1 first award seats on its nonstop routes to Hawaii. AA’s itinerary often tags on Alaska’s availability.
3) You can fly United to Hawaii in first class for 30K one-way by booking through Singapore Airline. But again, availability is not good and at the moment does not exist.
4) You can fly Delta to Hawaii in first class for 45K miles roundtrip IF you book through Korean Airline. But finding Delta first class cheap level award seats is just as impossible. This post will show you how to book Delta through Korean Air
https://www.pointswithacrew.com/book-korean-air-awards-online-hawaii-mexico-25000-miles/
In all cases, it might require an overnight on the west coast and continues onto Hawaii next day. You can research availability by starting with the nonstop flights to Hawaii from west coast cities, United hubs and Delta hubs. Once you find that, search availability from that city to your home airport. Basically, searching leg by leg and then piece them together.