How to Use American Express Points to Book Flights on Alaska Airlines
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Say “hello” to one of the best new partnerships in the skies. A partnership that now makes it possible to transfer flexible points to Alaska Airlines. It’s about time!! 👏🏻
BUT it’s important to know exactly how to make this possible since this requires some extra leg work to actually move those miles to Alaska.
I’ve got you covered with a detailed step-by-step tutorial on how to transfer you American Express Membership Rewards points to Hawaiian Airlines and then move those miles to Alaska Airlines to book some unbeatable sweet spots! 💺👇🏼
The Process
First things first! You will need to have a loyalty account with both Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines before making this transfer. It only takes a few minutes to sign up and it’s totally free.
Once you have those set up, it’s time to log into your American Express portal and navigate to the Transfer Points tool in the Rewards & Benefits section.
🌺 Next, you’ll select Hawaiian Airlines for the partner you want to transfer to. If this is your first time transferring points to Hawaiian, you’ll link your free loyalty account first (but then it will be linked and saved for future transfers, easy peasy!).
You can either type in the number of points or use the bar to slide and choose the amount you want to transfer. ✨Always always always✨ make sure you have confirmed flight availability first and you know exactly how many points you need to transfer, because you can’t undo a transfer!
You’ll also notice that there is a small fee to transfer your points to Hawaiian, which I opted to charge to my American Express® Business Gold Card. For Membership Rewards transfers to US airlines, you’ll page .06-cent-per-point fee on transfers, but the fees are capped at no more than $99 per transfer.
Confirm that everything looks good 🔍 then hit “Submit Transfer.”
You’ll see a confirmation page (which I always like to take a quick screenshot of juuuussttt in case 😉).
Then you’ll want to log into your Hawaiian Airlines account to check and see if your miles are in your account. Mine were there almost instantly.
Then select “Redeem Miles” from the side bar on the left hand side of the screen.
And there you will find this option to transfer your miles over to Alaska Mileage Plan. Choose “Learn more.”
Select the program you want to transfer your miles to (Mileage Plan) and then you’ll need to sign into your Alaskan Airlines account so these accounts can be linked.
You will be prompted to choose how many miles you would like to move over and then select “Continue.”
👉🏻I was transferring over just enough miles to top off my account to finish booking 2 flights home from The Maldives, so it was 10,000 miles I moved.
A confirmation page will pop up so you’ll make sure everything looks right and then confirm that transfer!
Success! 🎉 The transfer can take some time to process. My miles showed up in my account after about 30 minutes, so I kept checking back frequently until they were there so I could get my flight booked right away.
After you see the miles are in your Alaska account, you can go ahead and book like usual using your miles. Hooray for a new way to book more flights on Alaska!!
My favorite cards that earn Membership Rewards
💳 American Express® Business Gold Card
💳 The Platinum Card® from American Express
💳 The Business Platinum Card® from American Express
Bottom Line
This new partnership between Hawaiian and Alaska has been a game👏🏻changer👏🏻 and has made it possible to book ever more of those highly sought after sweet spots that Alaska is known for! While the process may change in the future, this is definitely an option I will be taking advantage of more often as I book my flights.
💰The small fee is well worth it in my book if it means more access to Alaska bookings (especially partner airlines like American, Qatar, and so many more!).
So now the only question is, where will your miles take you next?! 🤩✈️
Side note: I cannot say thank you enough for using my links to apply! I earn a commission for those applications at no cost to you, and it helps keep all the free resources and support coming! 🩷
EDITORIAL DISCLOSURE: Opinions expressed here are the author's alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.
