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Alaska / Hawaiian Merger Moves Closer to Completion
The Department of Justice let a deadline of midnight last night go by without objecting to the merger of Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines, leaving the U.S. Transportation Department as the last big hurdle to clear.
That means that the merger of these two airlines, where Alaska will pay $1.9 Billion to acquire Hawaiian, is likely to be consummated – though nothing is ever assured until it’s done!
Many saw risk of the DOJ objecting, especially after they scuttled the proposed JetBlue merger with Spirit earlier this year.
Impact on Your Miles and Points
There are two, although the first one seems to be a coincidence.
- You can no longer transfer Bilt Rewards points to Hawaiian. They have been removed as a transfer partner, though Bilt’s VP of Travel Richard Kerr notes that the agreement was scheduled to end and was not renewed given that they already have Alaska as a transfer partner.
- As I’ve noted in the current Transfer Bonus opportunity to Hawaiian Miles (see all current and past transfer bonuses to Hawaiian Miles – including the current 20% bonus from Amex) and in previous articles around the merger, this *should* present an opportunity to convert American Express Membership Rewards points into Alaska MileagePlan miles via the backdoor assumption that Hawaiian Miles (which is a current US Amex transfer partner) will convert 1:1 into Alaska MileagePlan miles on closing. With this ruling cleared, and the 20% bonus from Amex to Hawaiian Miles on for just another 11 days, is this the time to move some points over? Maybe so?
I have to be honest that there’s a part of me that is afraid something goes wrong at the very last minute and we get stuck with a boatload of Hawaiian Miles we don’t want. But the odds certainly look good for such a strategy to work out Since it’s not a slam dunk sure thing, I’m going to stop short of actually advising you to do this, but I’m heavily considering it. Remember that the transfer will incur a small surcharge by Amex, up to $99 max, to cover the excise tax of $0.0006 per point. This tax and the maximum fee means that doing two 150,000 point transfers would cost you twice as much as one 300,000 point transfer.
I laid out in this recent article on Alaska MileagePlan Sweet Spots how much value I find in the program.
Thoughts?
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