United Offering 20% Off Award Flights to Hawaii
Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.
United is back with a new award sale, this time to Hawaii. You can fly the carrier from as little as 36,000 United miles round-trip from the mainland US to the Hawaiian Islands.
Right now, the sale is only open to United premier members and United MileagePlus Explorer Credit Card holders. It opens to everyone else Wednesday (March 14). You'll have to act fast because tickets need to be booked by March 14 at 11:59pm CT.
Marked down award flights are available from April 8 through May 20, and you'll have to book a round-trip itinerary to qualify for the discount. Even better, there are no blackout dates so you'll be able to grab a discounted ticket on any of the days — pending you can find availability (which we didn't have a problem with in any of our searches).
Flights from the mainland US to Hawaii typically cost 22,500 miles one-way or 45,000 miles round-trip in economy. With the sale, you'll pay 36,000 miles plus $11.20 in taxes for the round-trip economy flight. Only economy seats are on sale, so you won't be able to save on business or first class.
We are seeing great availability (probably because I'm a United cardholder, which opens up expanded saver award space), even on nonstops from Newark (EWR) to Honolulu (HNL) — that's a 10 hour flight, which is currently selling for $892 round-trip.
On that flight, you're getting about 2.5 cents per mile in value, which is a whole lot higher then the TPG valuations of 1.4 cents.
Here are a few other examples of what you can book:
Washington DC (IAD) to Honolulu (HNL):
Los Angles (LAX) to Kahului, Maui (OGG):
Chicago (ORD) to Lihue, Kauai (LIH):
While you won't have the miles before the sale is over, the United MileagePlus Explorer Credit Card is currently offering a 40,000-mile signup bonus after spending $2,000 in the first three months.
You can transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points into your United account, too. Both the Chase Sapphire Reserve and the Chase Sapphire Preferred are offering a 60,000-point signup bonus after spending $4,000 in the first three months.
If you don't have United miles you can also book through Korean Air SkyPass, Virgin Atlantic or Flying Blue — some of which require less miles than United.
H/T: Live and Let's Fly
