Good afternoon everyone, I hope you had a great weekend. I am excited to share that Laura and I are having a baby girl in August. With our upcoming Player 3 little bundle of joy, our travel plans will be on pause for a while, but I wanted to build up a big Alaska Airlines mileage balance so that when we take to the skies once more, we will have plenty of miles available.
As of May 2025, I have 1.3 million Alaska Airlines miles in my account. We built up this balance in the last year by transferring lots of AMEX Membership Rewards Points to our Hawaiian Airlines accounts, applying for Barclays Hawaiian Airlines credit cards, and then by consolidating all our miles into my Alaska Airlines account. For a step by step guide on how to do that, please read How to Transfer, Combine, or Move Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines Miles (with Direct Links).
With all that said… Should I transfer all my AMEX Membership Rewards Points to Hawaiian Airlines? After reading this post, please let me know your thoughts.
A few days ago, American Express posted a message saying, “Effective June 30th, 2025, the ability to transfer Membership Rewards points to Hawaiian Airlines’ HawaiianMiles will no longer be available.” I currently have 481K AMEX MR Points burning a hole in my pocket, so I am ready to pull the trigger on the transfer.
Back in August 2024, I gambled on the 20% transfer bonus from AMEX MR to Hawaiian Airlines and transferred 417K AMEX MR Points (which became 500K Hawaiian Airlines Miles). That gamble paid off right away when Hawaiian Airlines and Alaska Airlines allowed moving miles between both programs. Then in December 2024, I was worried that AMEX would suddenly pull the plug on transfers to Hawaiian Airlines at the end of 2024, so I transferred another 354K AMEX MR Points to Hawaiian Airlines. I was happy to keep a balance of ~400K AMEX MR Points in my account since we could use those points to travel somewhere fun in the Summer. But with a baby girl on the way, our international business class award flight travel plans are on pause.
Before I blindly transfer all my AMEX MR Points to Hawaiian Airlines, I consulted Frequent Miler’s Direct Transfers to Airline Loyalty Programs table. I sorted the table to see all of AMEX’s transfer partners and to see which airline partners were shared with the other transferrable points. As of May 2025, here are my current balances with the other transferrable points programs:
- 493K Chase Ultimate Rewards Points
- 97K Citi ThankYou Points
- 122K Capital One Miles
- 7K Bilt Rewards Points
- 0 Wells Fargo Points
Since my balances with Bilt and Wells Fargo are so small, I didn’t pay attention those those transfer partners. After comparing the first 4 transferrable points programs, AMEX has 3 unique airline partners: ANA, Delta, and Hawaiian. I have never flown or transferred points to ANA and I recently redeemed all my Delta SkyMiles for 2 award tickets for my parents, so Hawaiian Airlines is the only unique program I care about.
For due diligence, I also consulted Frequent Miler’s Direct Transfers to Hotel Loyalty Programs table. Choice, Hilton, and Marriott are not that exciting, so I would never transfer AMEX MR Points to those hotel programs.
Based on my situation, I think I will proceed with transferring all 481K AMEX MR Points to Hawaiian Airlines in the next few days. I doubt we will see another AMEX MR transfer bonus to Hawaiian Airlines in the next 1.5 months. And lastly, with my stash of 493K Chase Ultimate Rewards Points, 97K Citi ThankYou Points, and 122K Capital One Miles, we should be able to cover all our (big and small) future trips for the next few years.
If you think I am making a huge mistake transferring all 481K AMEX MR Points to Hawaiian Airlines, please speak now or forever hold your peace. Thank you for reading and please share your thoughts in the comments section below. Have a great day everyone!
What’s your earring potential for future MR’s?
Hi Carrie, I’ve had just about every AMEX CC available, but Laura has only had the AMEX Gold Card, so she is eligible for almost all AMEX CCs. And I can refer her to the cards and earn a referral bonus.
Plus, I can probably find a no lifetime language offer to earn more AMEX MR points in the future.
My concern is that once all this shakes out with the merger that there will be a devaluation of Alaska mikes coming soon after
Hi Nathan, I can understand the concern for a future devaluation, but according to Google…
“As a condition of their merger, Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines agreed to a six-year agreement protecting the value of their passenger rewards programs. This agreement ensures that consumers will receive the rewards, benefits, and status they have earned, preventing devaluation. Specifically, Alaska and Hawaiian agreed to preserve the value of HawaiianMiles and maintain the value of each unredeemed mile earned prior to the merger closing. They also agreed to honor active HawaiianMiles promotions and award miles at the same or greater value. The Department of Transportation (DOT) approved the merger on the condition that the airlines adhere to this agreement. This agreement is a key component of the DOT’s efforts to protect consumer interests during airline mergers.”
Based on that agreement, I don’t think we will see any massive devaluations for 6 years (that is my hope, at least).
FYI, this condition doesn’t apply to partner bookings (see page 6): https://downloads.regulations.gov/DOT-OST-2024-0084-0006/attachment_1.pdf
Hi Avi, oh wow, I didn’t realize that. My limited google search results did not mention partner bookings. That is good to know that partner bookings are not protected.
“…does not apply to:
a.
redemptions on Saver fare or any other fare products that are not available to Alaska Mileage Plan or HawaiianMiles members for miles redemption at time of Closing but become available after Closing.
b.
redemptions on partner airlines.
c.
purchases of any non-fare products (such as hotel stays, extra checked bags, lounge passes or Premium or First Class upgrades).”
Thank you Avi, that is very helpful info.
No prob. Like others, my vote is to keep your MR as MR. Those 1.3 mil AS miles will last you years, and it’s not like you’re sitting on such a huge pile of MR that you won’t be able to use them in other ways.
Congrats on the upcoming birth of your daughter! It’ll be life-changing in ways you can’t imagine.
Thank you Avi, we are excited to meet our baby girl in a few months.
I am leaning toward keeping my AMEX points, due to the good points you made. Thank you :)
Risky move …. you already have 1.3m Alaska miles adding your MR will give you a nice pile, but you are locked in. If no availability shows up, partners are removed, awards get more expensive … with MR at least you keep yourself an option. AF could have a sale to Europe and a 25% MR offer > which you can’t use because you didn’t divest.
Agree with Marc. 1.3m miles already is a big stash and can cover quite a few trips in the coming years. I like having as many currencies as possible so to have 0 Amex seems like a mistake.
And lets face it, there have probably been A LOT of miles coming into the Alaska program via this opportunity. While AS has historically been pretty good, I’d be surprised if we didn’t see some sort of devaluation at some point sooner rather than later.
Hi Shaun, I can understand the concern for a future devaluation, but according to Google…
“As a condition of their merger, Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines agreed to a six-year agreement protecting the value of their passenger rewards programs. This agreement ensures that consumers will receive the rewards, benefits, and status they have earned, preventing devaluation. Specifically, Alaska and Hawaiian agreed to preserve the value of HawaiianMiles and maintain the value of each unredeemed mile earned prior to the merger closing. They also agreed to honor active HawaiianMiles promotions and award miles at the same or greater value. The Department of Transportation (DOT) approved the merger on the condition that the airlines adhere to this agreement. This agreement is a key component of the DOT’s efforts to protect consumer interests during airline mergers.”
Based on that agreement, I don’t think we will see any massive devaluations for 6 years (that is my hope, at least).
Hi Marc, that is a good point and I have done a few AMEX MR transfer bonuses over the last few years. That is definitely a good reason to hold onto AMEX MR Points.
I’ve got ~500k with Alaska/HA and 1m MR, and I am not transferring any more over. Alaska has had too many no-notice unannounced devals – JAL went up, Korean air is effectively gone for now, partner connections are now priced higher than the award chart (should be 75k by distance but price at 95k). The availability on the new HA SEA-NRT/ICN (soon Rome too) and Starlux is nice, but you already have 1.3m AS that you won’t be able to burn through before two more rounds of devals.
MR is far more likely to retain its value. DL is decent for domestic econ. MR has recurring transfer bonuses to Avios, Air France, Virgin, and sometimes Cathay which are all currencies you might feasibly use in the future. MR can be held or cashed out with the checking account. And if have biz plat, can use at 1.54cpp which is a good floor of value.
Hi Aq, you made several great points for why it makes sense to hold onto AMEX MR Points.
There are a whole lot of variables that you don’t really go into that might help readers be more informed. For instance, what uses have you put your Alaska miles to previously and what do you see as good future options?
I’ve been a fan and collector of Alaska miles for around a decade. Their optimal usage has generally been in first class cabins on Cathay, JAL, Emirates, Qantas , and American, plus business class awards on Korean. Now, finding two award seats for any of those is just about impossible. BA has good availability but the YQ is insane. What does that leave? LanTam to South America, Condor to Germany, and some AA flights in coach. That’s pretty slim pickings to go all in.
Have you considered Aeroplan? They often have good availability and it’s a different group of airlines.
Hi Christian, that is a good question, and I was thinking about that earlier today.
Over the last 2 years, I’ve booked business class flights using Alaska Airlines miles for travel on Aer Lingus (DEN-DUB), Condor (FRA-LAX) and Air Tahiti Nui (SEA-PPT). Granted, those are not the nicest business class products in the world, but they worked for our schedules.
Living near SFO, I have lots of Alaska Airlines routes up and down the west coast and to Hawaii, so there are lots of flight options available.
+1 vote for keeping MR points.
You have plenty of Alaska miles already. In the worst case, you can always cash out Chase UR points or use MR for transfer to airlines.
Hi Alex, thank you for commenting, I’m leaning toward keeping my AMEX MR Points.