MY SCHEME WORKED!!

Some of you might remember I had this elaborate scheme involving FH and I opening 2 Hawaiian Air credit cards in order to get enough miles to bump us into first class. Well - IT WORKED!!! We both opened 'em, both got our miles, were just a little short and transferred some of my Amex rewards points over and VOILA! WE ARE NOW FLYING FIRST CLASS ON OUR HM!!!!!

congrats!!!!!!!

ENJOY IT!!

Great idea! Good job!

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Posted by MichBride

Wow that is awesome! We booked Hawaii but not first class. Can you explain to me what you did so maybe I can do the same thing? I would loveeee to fly first class!

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Sure!!! Hawaiian Airlines is running a promotion where if you open a Hawaiian AIrlines Visa you automatically get 20,000 miles after you make one purchase (my one purchase was starbucks, lol). So basically, FH opened a card, and I opened a card and that got us 40,000 miles total. You need 15,000 miles per passenger per direction to upgrade from coach to first class. SO, we bought regular coach seats because that is what we could afford, then we used 30,000 of our miles to bump our coach seats on the way home to first class. Then, we were 20,000 miles short for bumping both tickets on the trip to Hawaii, but I had Amex rewards points, so I just transferred them to Hawaiian Miles and voila - we bumped our seats in the other direction too!!! Another option if you are short on miles is to buy them - they cost .0025 cents per mile - so for example if you're like 7,500 miles short - you'll spend about $200 upgrading. All in all, it was a lot of leg work in terms of opening the cards, getting the miles, and then doing the Amex thing, but in the end, I am upgrading from coach to first class for free AND I'm just closing down the card after my one purchase!

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Posted by Rejjie

Wow! You are crafty-licious!

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LOL Thanks!

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Posted by MichBride

Wow that is amazing! Were you already booked or did you do this after you were booked? Also, do you have to be flying Hawaiian airlines? I think Im flying Continental or something like that.

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Yeah we booked out Coach tickets online and then we did the upgrading over the phone more than a month later after we had opened our cards and all that. And yes, unfortunately it does have to be Hawaiian Airlines. I looked into Delta as well, but they had 'catches' to their bonus miles, where you could only use them if you bought a 'Y' class coach ticket. Well guess what? A Y class coach ticket costs as much as a first class ticket, so that makes no sense! Ugh!