Last Chance: Transfer Amex Points to HawaiianMiles Before 30 June
From 30 June 2025, Amex Membership Rewards will lose HawaiianMiles as a transfer partner, cutting off a valuable workaround to access Alaska Airlines’ powerful Mileage Plan program.
American Express Australia has had HawaiianMiles as a Membership Rewards transfer partner since 2023. When Alaska Airlines acquired Hawaiian Airlines in 2024, they also planned a merger of the loyalty programs.
This merger was fantastic news for those of us with Amex Membership Rewards points, as it was possible to transfer points to HawaiianMiles and from there convert them at a 1:1 ratio to Alaska Mileage Plan, which is a very valuable points currency to have access to.
However, since Alaska Mileage Plan has an exclusive deal with Visa, this means that once the switch from HawaiianMiles to Mileage Plan is implemented, it also spells the end of a range of partnerships — Amex being one of those.
So, with that background info out of the way, we can now officially announce that Amex Membership Rewards Australia will also lose access to HawaiianMiles from 30 June 2025. This comes a couple of weeks after American Express USA made the announcement.
Should you transfer now?
Alaska Airlines is now part of oneworld and their loyalty program can often offer much better pricing compared to other oneworld programs such as Qantas. The surcharges are often lower as well.
For example, a flight from Sydney to Singapore with Qantas in business class would cost you 68,400 + AU$252 in fees with Qantas Frequent Flyer points, or just 60,000 Alaska Miles + US$86 in fees.
In this situation, it’s pretty obvious that Alaska would be the better option for this particular redemption!
If you want a full guide on HawaiianMiles, you can find that one here. If you want to learn how to transfer from HawaiianMiles to Alaska Mileage Plan, we have a dedicated guide on that here.
Summing up
While this isn’t the end of the world, having access to HawaiianMiles and Alaska Mileage Plan was a very nice benefit for Amex Membership Rewards participants. Going forward, you’ll still get access to over 10 transfer partners, with Asia Miles, British Airways Avios, Qatar Airways Avios and Qantas being the oneworld options. You will also continue to have access to Hawaiian Airlines redemptions as Qantas has just announced and activated their partnership as of June 5th 2025. Once Hawaiian Airlines becomes a fully fledged oneworld alliance member, we can also use our Asia Miles and Avios to redeem flight awards.
That said, we’d love to see Amex Australia add more transfer partners to the line-up. In my opinion, adding Aeroplan would be the most logical choice here!
