Barclaycard Launches New Hawaiian Airlines Credit Card With 35,000 Mile Sign-up Bonus

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here – Hawaiian Airlines World Elite Mastercard

Until a few months ago, Bank of America was the major issuer of the Hawaiian Airlines HawaiianMiles credit card. They lost the partnership and since then, it's been unclear what would happen. However, earlier this week, Barclaycard launched new personal and business versions of the credit card, both of which are offering up to 35,000 bonus miles. Here are the details.

The New Hawaiian Airlines World Elite Mastercard

• Earn 35,000 bonus miles when you make $1,000 in eligible purchases in the first 90 days
• Enjoy a Complimentary Checked Bag for the primary cardholder when you use your card to purchase tickets directly from Hawaiian Airlines
• Receive a one-time 50% Off Companion Discount for roundtrip coach travel between Hawaii & North America on Hawaiian Airlines
• Discounted award travel (5,000 miles off roundtrip award fares from North America to Hawaii).
• 2X miles per $1 on direct purchases from Hawaiian Airlines, 1X miles on everything else
• Earn up to 10X miles per $1 with participating partners
• Every membership year you spend $10,000 or more on the card, you get 5,000 bonus miles
• Primary Cardholders are eligible to earn a $100 discount off one coach companion ticket for roundtrip travel between Hawaii and North America on each credit card account anniversary.
• Share miles for free. Hawaiian Airlines World Elite MasterCard cardholders can receive HawaiianMiles from friends and family online at HawaiianAirlines.com up to 10 times per calendar year
• No foreign transaction fees
• SmartChip technology
• $89 annual fee

The New Hawaiian Airlines Business Mastercard

• Earn 35,000 bonus miles when you make $1,000 in eligible purchases in the first 90 days
• Receive a one-time 50% Off Companion Discount for roundtrip coach travel between Hawaii & North America on Hawaiian Airlines
• 2X miles per $1 on direct purchases from Hawaiian Airlines, 1X miles on everything else
• Earn up to 10X miles per $1 with participating partners
• Earn 20,000 annual bonus miles on your Hawaiian Airlines Business MasterCard account anniversary when you spend between $50,000 and $99,999 in Net Purchases within an anniversary year, or 40,000 annual bonus miles on their credit card account anniversary when you spend at least $100,000 in Net Purchases within an anniversary year.
• Share miles for free. Hawaiian Airlines Business MasterCard cardholders can receive HawaiianMiles from friends and family online at HawaiianAirlines.com up to 10 times per calendar year
• No foreign transaction fees
• SmartChip technology
• $89 annual fee

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Now, HawaiianMiles might not be your mileage currency of choice, but they definitely have some useful features. Award seats on Hawaiian start at 20,00 miles each way from Hawaii to the mainland for coach, and 40,000 miles each way for first class, so one credit card sign-up is almost enough miles for a roundtrip coach award fare from North America to Hawaii (and it's actually enough if you find one of the discounted awards, though they're scarce). Intra-island awards start at just 7,500 HawaiianMiles, so you could fly a family of 5 with just 2,500 more miles than the sign-up bonus - which you could top up using Amex Membership Rewards points since the airline is a transfer partner of the program.

Not being a member of any of the three major alliances, Hawaiian Airlines also has some interesting partner redemption options. They are currently not part of any of the three major alliances but they partner with several different airlines including non-alliance partners such as: American, ANA, Korean Air, JetBlue, Virgin America, Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia, and in some cases, Hawaiian offers better redemption options.

For instance, Hawaiian offers a distance-based table for Virgin America awards, so Main Cabin Select or First Class seats, which can be extremely expensive when redeeming Virgin Elevate points, can be a bit more reasonable using HawaiianMiles. For example, you'd need 90,000 HawaiianMiles to fly First Class between Los Angeles and New York JFK, which could cost you 150,000-175,000 Elevate points normally.

So if you're a regular Hawaiian Airlines flyer, or are planning trips to the islands or on any of the airline's partners, it's worth looking into these two new credit card opportunities to see if they make sense for you and your credit card strategy.
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