HawaiianMiles will Transfer 1:1 to Alaska

The DOT has approved the merger of Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines yesterday. There’s a lot to break down, and you can read about the merger from Alaska here. But while there was some pre-merger concern about devaluations and the value of HawaiianMiles, the DOT required Alaska to convert HawaiianMiles to Alaska miles at a 1:1 ratio and maintain the value of the current program.

In addition to frequent Hawaiian flyers, this is huge news for people like me, who primarily rely on Alaska miles to fly (to Japan, in my case), but also have a stack of Amex points. That’s because—at least for now—Amex points can be transferred 1:1 to Hawaiian, and thus, in effect, to Alaska.

I’m sure future posts will address what this merger means in terms of Hawaiian’s relationship to Barclay’s (which issues its credit card) and Amex (which is a transfer partner, at least for now), but for the time being, this is a fantastic opportunity to turn Amex MR points into Alaska miles!