A Smart Way to Pool Your Alaska Miles…for Free!

It’s rarely a good idea to combine airline miles with another traveler’s. In most cases, the costs associated with the transfer far exceed the value of the miles transferred, and that’s usually true when it comes to sharing Alaska Airlines miles. But there’s now a backdoor way to pool Alaska miles without paying an additional fee.

The merger of Alaska with Hawaiian Airlines creates a time-limited opportunity to collect a lot of Hawaii miles and then fly them to Alaska. But more importantly, Hawaiian is one of the few airlines that offers you the option to “share miles.” This allows any HawaiianMiles member to give free miles to Hawaiian Airlines co-branded credit and debit card holders – Miles that you can then transfer to your Alaska account. If you were to attempt to combine miles directly between accounts with Alaska, you would be required to pay a $25 service fee plus a $10 fee per 1,000 miles transferred. Do the math and using Hawaiian Airlines to exchange your miles can pay off in no time!

There’s a catch: To use Hawaiian’s Share Miles for free, You will need the Hawaiian Airlines® World Elite Mastercard® or a Bankoh Hawaiian Airlines® Visa® debit card. Without such a fee, you’ll incur almost the same fees as in Alaska, and driving miles around probably won’t be worth it.

But having a co-branded Hawaiian Airlines card isn’t exactly a bad thing…even if you don’t plan on traveling to Hawaii. With a whopping 70,000 mile bonus after spending $2,000 in the first 90 daysYou can easily transfer these miles to Alaska to book domestic flights within the US, or use one of Alaska’s excellent partner redemptions to travel abroad in style!

Here’s what you need to know about Hawaiian Airlines’ Share Miles feature and how you can use it to transfer Alaska miles for free.

Related reading: Japan, Fiji, Europe and more: 6 sweet spots you can book with Alaska Miles

Share Alaska miles with Hawaiian Airlines

Not only is it more convenient for families to have a single pool of miles and ensure all awards are booked on one reservation, but it also allows you to more quickly build up a pool of miles that you can redeem for a “free” trip.

With Alaska and Hawaii airlines in the process of merging, This is a (probably) temporary way to get free Alaska (and Hawaiian) miles from anyone. Considering how valuable Alaska miles are — and how few ways there are to earn them in bulk — this is a great opportunity to stock up for future trips.

Sharing HawaiianMiles with another member couldn’t be easier. Simply log in to your HawaiianMiles account and navigate to the My Account page by clicking your name in the top right corner. Once you get there, you should scroll down until you see the “Share Miles” option in the menu on the left.

After you click Share Miles, all you need to do is enter the last name and HawaiianMiles number of the person you want to send miles to – as well as the number of miles you want to share.

Once you click “Continue,” you should see a checkout screen confirming your transfer and any associated costs. As a reminder: If you transfer miles to a primary HawaiianMiles cardholder, you will not be charged a fee. This includes the Hawaiian Airlines® World Elite Mastercard® and the Bankoh Hawaiian Airlines® Visa® Debit Cardand the HawaiianMiles credit card issued in Japan.

If you don’t share your miles with a HawaiianMiles cardholder, you’ll be charged a $25 service fee – plus a 1 cent fee per mile transferred. That means if you want to share 10,000 miles with a friend or family member, it would cost $125. Ouch!

Paying such a high fee to share miles will rarely be worth it.

After you agree to the terms and conditions associated with your transfer and click “Transfer Miles Now,” you will receive confirmation that the transfer of your miles is complete. The shared miles should be immediately available in the other person’s account.

If you plan to transfer your shared Hawaii miles to Alaska’s Mileage Plan program, you can do so through the shared miles transfer landing page. Just make sure you Select the frequent flyer program you would like to transfer miles to. Since you’re converting Hawaii miles to Alaska miles, you’ll first select “Mile Plan.”

You will be asked to log in with your Alaska credentials. This screen will then be displayed. From here, you can move the slider to transfer as many of your current Hawaii miles to Alaska as you would like. You must transfer at least 50 miles – in 50 mile increments.

One last thing to note: HawaiianMiles cardholders can only accept miles 10 times per calendar year. For most this probably won’t be a problem, but if you have a lot of people in your family that you want to earn miles with, it could be an issue. You’ll also want to make sure you’re splitting larger mile segments rather than just moving a few back and forth.

Conclusion

With most airlines, transferring miles from one member to another is an expensive undertaking, but that’s not the case with HawaiianMiles. As long as you’re making the transfer to a HawaiianMiles credit or debit cardholder, the transfer won’t cost a cent. And for now, that means you can also transfer Alaska miles from one traveler to another without paying a hefty fee!

This makes it easy to pool miles with a friend or family member and get closer to your next vacation more quickly.