Michigan Internet Marketing Club: Is Hawaii your frequent flyer award dream?

Is Hawaii your frequent flyer award dream?

Hawaii is something of a Holy Grail of frequent flyer award destinations: Beautiful beaches, warm ocean breezes, an exotic tropical paradise. But if the Aloha State is your award dream, you better know, long before you try to redeem your miles and pack your luggage, which airlines are most likely to deliver the goods.

As the chart below shows, Delta booked the greatest percentage of Hawaii round-trip tickets for award travel in the fiscal year ended September 30, 2014, from points all over the U.S. to Hilo, Honolulu, Kapaa, and Kahului-Wailuku-Lahaina, excluding island-to-island travel. To clearly identify visitors to Hawaii, we counted round-trip tickets from a U.S. Department of Transportation database, which contains a quarterly 10 percent sample of all airline tickets booked in the United States.

Although United booked a greater number of award tickets, that represented only 14 percent of its total passenger traffic to Hawaii.

Biggest twist: Hawaiian Airlines booked the lowest percentage of award tickets, and Alaska Airlines logged more than twice the number.

For more insight and advice on how to get the most from your frequent flyer program, see The ultimate frequent flyer guide.

—Jeff†Blyskal (@JeffBlyskal on Twitter)

Airline	Number of round-trip award passengers to Hawaii	% of Hawaii trips booked for awards
Delta	79,020	18%
American	67,760	16%
United	136,330	14%
Alaska	66,080	9%
Hawaiian	33,570	4%