# Frequent Flyer mile question



## wbrown (Dec 1, 2007)

I'm planning a trip to Hawaii using AA FF miles.  I would like to fly into one island and fly back home from another.  Does anyone know if you can book such an itinerary using miles.  This will save the extra expense of fly intra-island round trip if I can do this.

Thanks,

Wes


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## tim (Dec 1, 2007)

Yes, you can book such a routing using FF miles as long as the airline has service from both locations.  For example, I used miles to fly from CHicago to Sweden, Sweden to Germany and then Germany back to Chicago.  I did this with UA FF miles and had no problem.


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## Kazakie (Dec 1, 2007)

There are a lot of parameters you might want to look at

Intra-Island: I don't think AA flies between islands, which means if they have service it's via code-share.  You can definitely check availability but three's generally not much using code-share partners.  We found intra-island flights pretty reasonable while we were there.

To/From separate islands:  There are a lot less mainland flights that don't originate from HNL, so best to book early.  Flights from other airports may also require more connections or longer layovers than flights out of HNL, so consider your flight time when booking.


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## wbrown (Dec 1, 2007)

Kazakie said:


> There are a lot of parameters you might want to look at
> 
> Intra-Island: I don't think AA flies between islands, which means if they have service it's via code-share.  You can definitely check availability but three's generally not much using code-share partners.  We found intra-island flights pretty reasonable while we were there.
> 
> To/From separate islands:  There are a lot less mainland flights that don't originate from HNL, so best to book early.  Flights from other airports may also require more connections or longer layovers than flights out of HNL, so consider your flight time when booking.




I was planning on doing the intra-island flight between Honolulu and Maui using one of the intra-island carriers such as Aloha, Hawaiian etc.  My mainland flights would be with American Airlines LAX to HNL and return Kahului to LAX.  

I couln't find anywhere on the AAdvantage redeem miles reservation area on their website where I could reserve such a flight.  Perhaps I just need to reserve it over the phone?  Is that what I need to do?


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## Pit (Dec 1, 2007)

The AAdvantage Terms & Conditions say:



> All flight awards entitle you to round-trip or one-way travel unless otherwise noted.



You should call and ask, but I suspect the only way to do what you're trying to do is book two one-way tickets. That would require twice as many miles, and not worth it, IMO.


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## Carlsbadguy (Dec 1, 2007)

I have booked flights to Maui and back from Kaui many times.  However, you cannot do it on American's website you have to call and pay the extra fee.  For delta flights you can do a multi trip routing on the website.


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## wbrown (Dec 2, 2007)

howard said:


> I have booked flights to Maui and back from Kaui many times.  However, you cannot do it on American's website you have to call and pay the extra fee.  For delta flights you can do a multi trip routing on the website.



That's great!  How much is the extra fee to do this?  Also, I assume this works with FF mile reservations as well.


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## dsyrcle (Dec 2, 2007)

Earlier this year I made a flight to Kona and flew home from Maui on a round trip ticket. I did a seperate inter island flight one way Kona to Maui. We used Alaska points but flew AA. We originated in LAX. Arangements were made over the phone.

I did a similiar flight on AA 2 years ago and flew into Kona and flew home from Lihue.


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## myip (Dec 2, 2007)

wbrown said:


> That's great!  How much is the extra fee to do this?  Also, I assume this works with FF mile reservations as well.


$15 service charge.


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## camachinist (Dec 2, 2007)

http://www.aa.com/content/AAdvantage/programDetails/awards/makingAwardReservations.jhtml

There used to be a caveat about the open jaw being shorter than the shortest flown leg, but I'm not aware if it is still applicable or not.

Pat


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## Henry M. (Dec 2, 2007)

I have flown to Hawaii many times on AA FF miles, arriving in one island and returning from another. I just booked my vacation for next summer flying into HNL and returning from OGG (Maui). I usually try to to stick with Hawaiian or Aloha for the interislands. They have 737's and there are no baggage issues like you find with the smaller planes. 

What I've done is reserve a round trip to one island on aa.com and then call them to change the return. I haven't been charged a fee for requesting the change but it might be because I'm Executive Platinum with AA and they waive some of their fees for me. I'm not sure if this is one of them or if there's no fee for making the change to a reservation made through AA.com.

Next summer I'm actually going to Kauai, not HNL, but I couldn't find the 4 seats I needed and the flights they offered got late into Kaui anyhow. Instead I booked my arrival into HNL and then an interisland on Hawaiian into LIH. It cost me about $49/person but the connection was much better and I get into LIH in the afternoon.

If you fly Hawaiian you might even get AA miles, depending on the fare. HA is a partner for American. I usually book pretty low fares and they are not eligible for mileage, though. American will fly you between island but it costs something like 5000 miles per segment and I prefer to save the miles for more expensive tickets.


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## travelguy (Dec 2, 2007)

I just made an open-jaw FF trip with AA in October.  Arriving in Maui (OGG) and leaving two weeks later from Oahu (HNL).  This was easy to do but you must call a rep to do it.  I was even able to do it without any AA FF miles.  I used Amex Rewards points converted to Mexicana miles and then had Mexicana actually purchase the tickets from AA.  Took about an hour on the phone to do but the end result was free tickets and good flights!


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## Hoc (Dec 2, 2007)

wbrown said:


> I'm planning a trip to Hawaii using AA FF miles.  I would like to fly into one island and fly back home from another.  Does anyone know if you can book such an itinerary using miles.



You can do this using AA miles, assuming there is availability.  There might not be a codeshare with available frequent flyer mileage seats for the inter-island flight, but you could go ahead and book into one island, then back home from the other island, and pay the $19 for the one-way interisland trip out of your pocket.


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## rpw (Dec 3, 2007)

Hoc said:


> You can do this using AA miles, assuming there is availability.  There might not be a codeshare with available frequent flyer mileage seats for the inter-island flight, but you could go ahead and book into one island, then back home from the other island, and pay the $19 for the one-way interisland trip out of your pocket.



Where do I find this $19 rate for inter island?


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## BevL (Dec 3, 2007)

Go airlines flies for that fare, sometimes.  But it's not hard to find $39 fares all over the place, if you're booking a little ways ahead.


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## Hoc (Dec 3, 2007)

rpw said:


> Where do I find this $19 rate for inter island?



Go, Aloha or Hawaiian Airlines.


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## mbh (Dec 3, 2007)

*I recently did this*

I used AA frequent flier miles to fly from NY to Kauai and back from the Big Island to NY. I paid $39 to fly Aloha from Kauai to the Big Island. However, I could only do this over the phone with an AA reprensatative, so it cost me $25. Using the web site, I was unable to get a roundtrip without paying double miles. By calling, I was able to get the round-trip to and from different islands for 35K miles.


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## thinze3 (Dec 3, 2007)

travelguy said:


> I just made an open-jaw FF trip with AA in October.  Arriving in Maui (OGG) and leaving two weeks later from Oahu (HNL).  This was easy to do but you must call a rep to do it.  I was even able to do it without any AA FF miles.  I used Amex Rewards points converted to Mexicana miles and then had Mexicana actually purchase the tickets from AA.  Took about an hour on the phone to do but the end result was free tickets and good flights!



Who did this for you, Mexicana?
When did you contact Amex, after the Mexicana/AA itinerary was in place?


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## travelguy (Dec 4, 2007)

thinze3 said:


> Who did this for you, Mexicana?
> When did you contact Amex, after the Mexicana/AA itinerary was in place?




*Amex MR Points to Mexicana to AA FF Tickets Procedure*

1.	Enter the Mexicana FF info in the Amex MR site and “link” to your Amex MR account.  You need to do this only once.
2.	Check American Airlines web site and determine which FF itinerary to use.  Confirm with AA FF operator.  Print flight information.
3.	Call Mexicana FF Dept: 800-531-7901.  Explain that you want to book a AA FF with Mexicana FF miles and that you will transfer Amex MR to your Mexicana FF account once the AA FF tickets are on hold.  Note that each Mexicana FF account used for a ticket will be a separate reservation.
4.	Give the Mexicana FF Dept the trip info including connecting cities and flight numbers.  THEY SAY THAT THEY CANNOT BOOK THE FLIGHTS WITHOUT THE CONNECTING AND FLIGHT # INFO!
5.	Give the Mexicana FF Dept your Amex Rewards # starting with “1M”.  They will tell you how many miles need to be transferred into the Mexicana FF account.
6.	The tickets will be held by Mexicana for 15 days.  You will receive a record locater number for each reservation.
7.	Transfer the appropriate number of Amex MR points to the Mexicana FF account on the Amex MR web site.
8.	Wait for the miles to show up in your Mexicana FF account.  Can take up to 14 days.
9.	Contact the Mexican FF Dept and ask them to convert the AA FF tix reservation to tix.  They will give you an AA record locater number.  The charge is $60 for each ticket by Mexicanna PLUS taxes ($10 each to Hawaii).
10.	Wait 24 hours and call AA FF.  Tell them the flight #s to get confirmation #, confirm the tickets, get seats, etc.

When the smoke cleared, we somehow still had 11,000 miles left in our Mexicana FF accounts.  Now if I can just move them back to Amex MR or AA FF accounts ....


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## thinze3 (Dec 5, 2007)

Excellent!

I am hoping to put together a plan for a second honeymoon to Europe in the next two years using a combination of Amex points and MR rewards points. It is begining to look like I will have enough Amex points for the two round trip business class tckets with one additional European stop. (approx. 200,000 pts.) By next year I wil have more than enough MR points for the two CAT 7 certs and/or sampler certs.

The best flight option appears to be AA which Amex does not convert to. Continental, of course would work best, but has limited availability. I am now trying to study other airlines including domestic, european, canadian, etc.. Also will be checking different east coast starting points.

This is why we all love TUG!  





travelguy said:


> *Amex MR Points to Mexicana to AA FF Tickets Procedure*......
> 
> .....When the smoke cleared, we somehow still had 11,000 miles left in our Mexicana FF accounts.  Now if I can just move them back to Amex MR or AA FF accounts ....


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