For that special birthday that comes at fifty, I ended up deciding that I’d need to see the sun rise on the morning of my fiftieth birthday in the Hawaiian Islands. This was a pretty easy task, given the amount of airlines that fly to Hawaii and the amount of hotels that are available in the Hawiian Islands. We ended up settling on visiting the Big Island, the last Hawiian Island that I had yet to visit. We spiced up the trip by redeeming an Alaska 2 for 1 Companion Fare that was upgraded into First Class and by redeeming Marriott Bonvoy points for a five night stay. Read on to see how we managed to maximize value from this particular holiday.

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This post is one chapter on my trip to the Big Island of Hawaii, United States of America. This trip was enhanced through Marriott Bonvoy Elite Status, Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan and Hertz Gold Plus Rewards. For more information on how this trip was booked, please see our trip introduction. For other parts of the trip, please see this index.

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Trip Introduction: Hawaii Five – O, Getting to Kona for my 50th birthday via Alaska Airlines First Class

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Planning the Trip:

I had decided that I wanted to spend my fiftieth birthday in the Island State of Hawaii. Hawaii is close to my home in Vancouver, Canada making it a reasonably close hop to get away to an island beach holiday. The Islands of Hawaii have always had a tremendous part of my travel life at various times throughout my adult life. It’s a place that I’ve visit as a younger adult, a Generation X’er in adulthood and as. afather to my son.

It seemed to be the place to ring in a fairly significant birthday and reflect back on the first fifty years of adulthood.

Planning Flights:

Flights from Canada to Hawaii, United States

We’ve always been fairly big fans of Alaska Airlines as a result of it’s generous Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan frequent flier program. While it was more comfortable to fly in United Airlines Polaris Business Class to Hawaii, they are limited to service on this aircraft configuration to Honolulu. Aside from Delta Airlines, you’re pretty much limited to narrow body service to and from the outer Hawaiian Islands and the mainland United States of America.

Through Alaska Airlines now discontinued Canadian MBNA Alaska Airlines World Elite Mastercard, I ended up looking to redeem an Alaska 2 for 1 companion fare to add a little value in order to get to Alaska in a little more comfort.

The companion fares can’t be redeemed against a First Class fare directly, but Alaska does allow redemption against an upgradable economy class ticket purchased in specific fare codes. These are usually a little more expensive than the saver or main cabin fares.

Alaska Airlines upgrade space can be hit or miss. However, using the upgradable fare selection, I was able to easily locate upgrade space about four months before travel in the middle of the summer month of August. I ended up finding space from nearby Bellingham airport to Seattle, to Seattle to Kona, Hawaii, as opposed to the usual departures from Vancouver International Airport, Canada.

Out of the four segments, I wasn’t able to find upgrade space in the last Seattle to Bellignham segment. For a twenty two minute flight, I resigned ourselves to sitting in economy for that segment. Fortunately, Alaska Airlines released some additional “U” fare class upgrade space, and we were automatically upgraded into First Class about thirty days after we had purchased our ticket.

The routing ended up looking like this at the end of the planning stages.

BLI – SEA – KOA – SEA – BLI (paid)

Planning Hotels:

With a stack of Marriott Bonvoy hotel points sitting in our points accounts, MrsWT73 was keen to use points to offset the cost of the holiday. Marriott Bonvoy isn’t always a terrific value in Hawaii, USA with most properties seeking over 70,000 points per night. This is usually a terrible value redemption but it does save some money in the bank.

On Kona, we happened to discover that The Westin Hapuna Beach Resort presented stay options for a more reasonable 54,000 Marriott Bonvoy points per night. The alternative was a cash rate of about $579 USD per night.

We ended up redeeming 218,000 Marriott Bonvoy points at the Westin Hapuna Beach Resort for a five night stay. We got the fifth night free, per the Marriott Bonvoy terms and conditions. This represented a redemption value of about 0.012 dollars a Marriott Bonvoy point against a rate of about 0.008 dollars per point. While this was hardly a terrific value in terms of global perspective, it was, in my view, a reasonable redemption in the context of the Hawaiian environment where most hotels are pricing well over 75,000 Marriott Bonvoy points per night.

We booked into a basic Partial Ocean View – King with a partial ocean view and balcony. As a result of variable pricing, we had a variety of room rates across the stay, we ended up paying an average of 54,500 Marriott Bonvoy points a night. This math worked out to 43,600 Marriott Bonvoy points per night when averaged over five nights.

In my view, this is a pretty reasonable rate for Hawaii and you’d be happy these days in getting a room redemption under 45,000 Marriott Bonvoy points per night somewhere decent.

Overall, I think we came out pretty well in finding value for a Hawaiian Resort stay.

Our points and miles redemption summary:

While this trip a mix of paid tickets and redemptions, it certainly struck the right balance. We were able to earn some hard to get Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles, and were able to redeem some easier to accumulate Marriott Bonvoy points.

In summary, we earned and redeemed:

• Redemption: 218,000 Marriott Bonvoy points for a five night stay at the Westin Hapuna Beach Resort in Kona, Hawaii, USA
• Earned: 4,610 Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Miles (1,519 + 828 + 744 + 1519) on Alaska Airlines First Class (U Upgrade) Bellingham – Seattle – Kona – Seattle – Bellingham as an Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan MVP.

While it is always hard to part with points, I think this struck the right balance between earning and burning.

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If you visit the Hawaiian Islands, what tips do you use to get outsized value ?

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