The astonishing view from the St Regis Princeville on Kauai, Hawaii (Photo: Barkley Dean)
United has a special for MileagePlus members: A limited-time sale on award travel to Hawaii this winter.
This comes on the heels of an excellent fare sale with fares diving to around $350 round trip from many western cities.
The airline has cut the price of roundtrip economy class Saver award tickets to the islands from the usual 45,000 miles to 36,000 miles – a 20 percent reduction.
The offer is good for travel from January 7 through March 10 – but the booking deadline is the end of the day December 8.
The MileagePlus sale is available for travel on United from the mainland to all the island destinations it serves, including Honolulu, Maui, Lihue (Kauai), and the Big Island airports of Kona and Hilo.
To see all the terms and conditions, click here. Saver award tickets are capacity-controlled, so once they’re gone, they’re gone. In which case you ought to consider buying a cheap seat – as of today they are still on sale.
We checked to see if it was possible to book our well-flown path between SFO and Lihue for 36,000 in February. Found plenty of seats for 18,000 on the way down, but few if any on the return. Or, only available on one-stop flights vs nonstops. January shows more availability than February. How’d you fare?
In this case, what would you do: Redeem 36,000 miles or buy a ticket for around $350? Leave you answer below.
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With the change to revenue based pricing, what does it matter to use points or pay in cash, they have the same basic value. Obviously a 20% discount on points, is a discount over the cash price… less any deals on… which there are. Put another way – how would the 20% points discount be any different than cash?
I think the airlines are immensely short sighted about thier treatment of the points as cash – it entirely undermines the loyalty system.