Tag Archives: Alaska Airlines

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My 2025 Travel Predictions Midyear Review: Hits, Misses & Lots of Wild Guesses

Good afternoon everyone, I hope your weekend is going well. As we approach the midpoint of the year, I thought it would be a good time to check in on My Overly Ambitious 2025 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card PredictionsCorrect predictions are in green, incorrect predictions are in red, and half correct predictions are in orange.  Without further ado, here is my midyear review for my 2025 predictions:

Airline Predictions:

  • Alaska Airlines or Southwest Airlines will bring back their “convert travel funds to airline miles” feature.
    • No, these “convert travel funds to airline miles” have not returned yet in 2025.
  • Alaska Airlines will let you use the Companion Fare to book Hawaiian Airlines flights.
    • No, but I am still optimistic that we will see this happen before the end of the year.
  • American Airlines will return as a Citi ThankYou Points transfer partner.
    • No, not yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see this happen in the next few months.
  • British Airways will lower their partner redemption prices for American Airlines and Alaska Airlines.
    • No, the redemption prices have not changed for American Airlines or Alaska Airlines.
  • Delta will increase the annual fee on their credit cards and increase the Delta SkyMiles discount to 20%-25%.
    • No, but the rumored super-duper-ultra-premium AMEX Delta credit card could have this benefit (link).
  • JetBlue will allow you to redeem points on a new partner airline (besides Etihad Airways, Hawaiian Airlines and Qatar Airways).
    • Yes! With the United Airlines and JetBlue “Blue Sky” partnership, you can redeem JetBlue points on United Airlines and vice versa (link).
  • United Airlines will bring back their “family pooling” feature.
    • Yes! You can pool United Airlines miles, but they can only be used for United and United Express flights, not Star Alliance partners (link).

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Should I Transfer All My AMEX Points to Hawaiian Airlines?

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.

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How to Transfer, Combine, or Move Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines Miles (with Direct Links)

Republished on 5/18/25 since AMEX announced that American Express Membership Rewards Point transfers to Hawaii Airlines will end on June 30, 2025.


Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well. In this post, I will show you how we moved Alaska Airlines Miles into Hawaiian Airlines Miles, transferred those miles between Hawaiian Airlines accounts, and then transferred those miles to Alaska Airlines.  We wanted all of our miles to be in a single account (my Alaska Airlines account) to make award booking easier since we would book all of our award tickets from a single account.  Transfers between Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines were free and instant.  Here are the steps we did…

A few weeks ago, Laura and I transferred large chunks of American Express Membership Rewards Points into Hawaiian Airlines Miles when AMEX had a 20% transfer bonus to Hawaiian Airlines.  I transferred 417K AMEX MR Points into 500K Hawaiian Airlines Miles on August 29.

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My 2024 Travel Recap: Elite Statuses, Flights & Hotel Nights

Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  I thought it would be cool to share the hotel and airline elite statuses I earned (and matched to) in 2024 along with the number of flights I flew and the number of nights I stayed in hotels.  Fun fact: I might be the only travel blogger without Hyatt Globalist Elite Status (I actually don’t have any Hyatt status).  Read on to learn more interesting facts about my 2024 travel recap.

2024 Flights & Airline Elite Statuses

  • Alaska Airlines is the only airline status that I earned (and care about).  I took 14 flights and earned 13,658 elite miles.  I also earned 8,000 elite miles from spending $20,000 on my Bank of America Alaska Airlines Credit Card.  I am looking forward to earning Alaska Airlines MVP Elite Status in 2025 with several Companion Fare flights and awards booked with Alaska Airlines miles.
  • SFO is my nearest international airport, but I only flew United Airlines 3x last year.
  • Before the end of 2024, I status matched to Hawaiian Airlines Pualani Gold (allows better seat assignments on Hawaiian Airlines) and Southwest Airlines A List, but I don’t have any Southwest Airlines flights planned in 2025 since all my favorite routes were moved from SFO to OAK.
Loyalty Program Status Status from Credit Card Notes Flights
Alaska Airlines MVP 13,658 Elite Miles from flying + 8,000 Elite Miles from credit card spend 14
Delta Airlines 3 trips: SFO-ATL-DAB, DAB-ATL-SFO, and MIA-JFK 5
United Airlines 3 trips: SFO-SNA, SNA-SFO, and SFO-DEN 3
Air France / KLM 1 Business Class Award: ARN-AMS-LAX 2
Avelo Airlines 2 trips: STS-BOI and BOI-STS 2
Finnair 2 trips: DUB-HEL and HEL-ARN 2
Aer Lingus 1 Business Class Award: DEN-DUB 1
JetBlue 1 trip: SFO-FLL 1
Hawaiian Airlines Pualani Gold Status matched from Alaska Airlines MVP Elite Status (Dec 2024) 0
Southwest Airlines A List Status matched from Alaska Airlines MVP Elite Status (Dec 2024) 0
Total Flights:  30

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2024’s Must-Reads: Have You Read My Most Popular Posts Yet?

Good afternoon everyone, happy New Year’s Eve!  As we wrap up 2024, it’s time to take a look at my top 10 most popular blog posts of the year. Barring any crazy last minute spikes in blog readership today, these are the top 10 blog posts written in 2024 and top 10 blog posts written in previous years. If you are curious, here were the most popular posts from 20162017201820192020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.

2024’s Most Popular Blog Posts (Written in 2024)

  • PSA: Bank of America Won’t Automatically Send a Replacement Debit Card when your Card Expires (2/20/24) – I realized my Bank of America debit card had expired in July 2022, and I never received a replacement debit card until I requested one in February 2024, despite having it stored in ApplePay. My frustration grew from the lack of notifications and outdated PIN change process. Judging by the number of pageviews this post received, I guess I wasn’t the only one with this problem.
  • My 2023 Peloton Bike Rental Year End Review (Total Cost of Ownership & Workout Class Stats) (1/21/24) – In 2023, I rented a Peloton bike instead of buying one, opting for the flexibility of a monthly rental with the option to pause or return it. Although I didn’t meet my fitness goals, I appreciated the variety of classes, the ability to create multiple profiles, and the affordability of the rental option, especially with my employer’s fitness reimbursement.  I wasn’t planning on writing a 2024 Peloton year end review, but since this post was so popular, I will work on a 2024 update in the coming days.
  • Attention Coinstar Users: Not All Kiosks Offer Amazon eGift Cards (1/19/24) – During a recent trip to SoCal, I used a Coinstar kiosk to convert a bag of change into an eGC, only to find that Amazon was missing as a redemption option. After researching, I discovered that not all kiosks offer Amazon eGCs, with availability varying by location and grocery store chain.  I wish all Coinstar kiosks had the same redemption offers so this issue would be avoided.

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