While it’s always best to book flights before the peak holiday season, you can still book a great last-minute trip to Hawaii for miles. Delta Air Lines and United Airlines are both offering deals right now for last minute trips.
With these offers, you can spend as little as 32,800 miles, or $397, on return flights to Hawaii; this is a steal because flights to Hawaii can cost thousands of dollars during the holiday season.
Remember that to access the best deals in miles with United, you need to have Premier elite status or a co-branded credit card. Delta does not require status to receive discounts on redemption of miles.
basic transaction
Airlines: Delta and United.
Route: Denver, Los Angeles, Newark, San Francisco, and other Delta and United hubs offer rewards-based discounts if you’re a United Premier member or own a United co-branded card. You don’t need to have any award status to access the deal for Delta.
How to put: Directly on the Delta.com or United.com website.
Date of department: The week of December 26.
Recorded by: AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
sample flight
To maximize the prize pool, you will have to change the United and Delta dates and times. We’ve found the days after Christmas have some of the best deals by mile; Delta has one-way flights for as low as 13,000 miles and United has one-way flights for as low as 20,400 miles.
One of the flights we found with the lowest mileage costs was a round trip Delta flight from Los Angeles to Kahului, Hawaii. A total of 35,000 miles for a single trip from December 27 to January 5. The December 27 flight from Los Angeles to Kahului, Hawaii was 13,000 Delta SkyMiles and the January 5 return flight from Kahului, Hawaii is 22,000 miles.
You can book each flight individually as a one-way trip or a round trip as the miles add up to 35,000 regardless of whether you book round-trip or two-way. A flight at 35,000 miles is a relative bargain as cash rates for Delta flights to Kahului, Hawaii, start at $654 on the same day.
The best deals on United miles only apply if you have Premier status or a co-branded credit card. If you’re booking with United, we recommend looking for one-way flights to better understand your options.
For trips from San Francisco to Honolulu, United has flights as low as 18,500 miles on December 30 and 31. If you’re looking to spend as few miles as possible, then the best day to fly a return flight. arrival in San Francisco will be January 11, when flights are only 14,300 miles away.
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This round trip journey totals 32,800 miles. If you book in cash, you’ll spend at least $406 on the return fare.
United also has other one-way options to maximize your mileage. For example, you can get one-way flights to Honolulu from Newark and Seattle for as little as 24,200 miles.
Maximize your purchases
Make sure to use a card that earns reward points when buying airline tickets like Platinum Card® from American Express (5 points per dollar on airline tickets booked directly with the airline or through American Express Travel), up to $500,000 for these purchases per calendar year, Citi Prestige® Card (5 points per dollar on airfare), Citi Premier® Card, Chase Sapphire Reserve (3 points per dollar on airfare), American Express® Gold Card (3 points per dollar on airfare when booked directly with the airline or through Amex Travel) or Chase Sapphire Priority Card (2 points per dollar for travel). Check out this post for more on how to maximize your airline ticket purchases.
Citi Prestige Card information has been independently collected by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.
bottom line
If you’re looking to fit in a last-minute vacation, this deal is for you—especially if you have the United or Delta SkyMiles status you’ve been hoping to use. If you book trips with miles, you get a slight discount on your airfare compared to if you booked with cash.
Delta offers a much higher mileage discount than United, but both are still worth booking — especially since flights to Hawaii are so expensive this time of year.
