Frequent Miler on the Air - Alaska / Hawaiian credit card strategy - which card should you get now? | Coffee Break Ep38 | 12-24-24 | Podcast

Episode Date: December 24, 2024

In today's episode, we're going to be considering the Alaska / Hawaiian credit card strategy and asking the question: which card should you get now, if any? (01:38) - Current lineup of Alaksa / Hawaiian credit cards (02:17) - Learn more about the Bank of America Alaska Consumer card here: https://frequentmiler.com/AS/ (02:34) - ...and the Bank of America Alaska Business card here: https://frequentmiler.com/ASbiz/ (02:46) - Learn more about the Barclays Hawaiian Consumer card here: https://frequentmiler.com/HA/ (03:15) - ...and the Barclays Hawaiian Business card here: https://frequentmiler.com/HAbiz/ (04:35) - Considering Hawaiian cards (06:02) - Considering Alaska cards (07:40) - What's the best strategy? Visit https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe to get updated on in-depth points and miles content like this, and don’t forget to like and follow us on social media. Music Credit – Beach Walk by Unicorn Heads

Here we go. This is not your typical Frequent Miler on the Air episode. This is a standalone segment we're calling Coffee Break. Each Coffee Break segment will cover a single topic related to miles and points. And each Coffee Break is limited to 20 minutes or your money back. Enjoy. Today's coffee break, we're going to be considering the Alaska and Hawaiian credit card strategy. Which card, if any of these, should you get now? So time is limited. Time is limited. Alaska has announced that they're going to be merging the Hawaiian and Alaskan programs next year in 2025. And we expect that the Hawaiian Airlines cards will be gone, no longer available to new applicants

when they merge the programs together. So that's like raised these questions of like, do we want to get, should you get the wine cards now? And then further, they said a new premium Alaska card is coming in the summer of 2025. And that also raises a question like, should you get an Alaska card now if it might make it harder to get the premium card later? So yeah, so those are the topics what do you think nick lots of questions lots of things to consider uh yeah this is a tough one actually a reader emailed in with this question i thought it'd make for a good discussion because there are a number of considerations let's start by just going quickly over the current lineup of credit cards and the

reason we're going over alaska and hawaii and if you've been hiding under a rock somewhere or just not paid attention to this news over the last month or two or three or whatever it's been, like Greg said, the two airlines are merging programs. And at the moment, you can transfer your Hawaiian miles one to one to Alaska. So if you collect a bunch of Hawaiian miles now, you can move them to your Alaska account. And there's some other considerations here, too. But let's start by just going over the different options for credit cards then that are either Alaska credit cards or Hawaiian credit cards so that you know all of the options you have for essentially collecting Alaska miles. So first up, we got the Bank of America Alaska Airlines consumer visa signature. That card, as we record this now in late 2024, has a welcome offer where you can earn up to 75,000 points after $3,000 in purchases, which is a solid offer. Maybe

the best we've seen on that card, I think. The Bank of America Alaska Airlines business card comes with 50,000 miles after $3,000 in purchases. Kind of ho-hum. Yeah, meh. Not real exciting there. Then on the Barclays side, Barclays issues the Hawaiian cards. And again, we expect that these cards will go away by summer of 2025. And who knows? I mean, could be next week, could be next month, could be three, five, six months from now. We don't know. So right now there's the Barclays Hawaiian Airlines consumer card. That card offers a welcome bonus of 70,000 miles after first purchase as we record this. So all you need is that first purchase, 70,000 miles. Nice bonus on that card. The Hawaiian Airlines business card has a bonus of 50,000 miles after $4,000 in purchases.

Double meh. I was waiting for Craig's meh there, right? That's $1,000 more in purchases for the same essentially 50,000 miles, right? So those are the four cards right now that directly earn Alaska or Hawaiian miles. Of course, don't forget that Amex membership rewards points

can transfer one-to-one to Hawaiian. So you could earn membership rewards points and transfer those to Hawaiian and then transfer them on from Hawaiian to your Alaska account. So that's another way to earn miles. And that's another way that we expect to go away, probably no later than summer of 2025, but could be earlier. It should mention there is a small fee to transfer points from Amex to any U.S.-based airline, including Hawaiian. Yep. And to be clear, for people who have only ever transferred to U.S.-based programs, you don't pay that fee when you transfer to foreign airline programs. It's just the U.S.-based ones and only Amex that charges that fee. So worth knowing that. All right. So those are the four cards. Plus,

again, get the membership rewards cards that kind of you can look at as earning miles or points that could be transferred here anyway. And there are some additional considerations on both sides of things. So on the Hawaiian side, you got the fact that the Hawaiian cards are going to go away at some point. We don't know when, but they're not going to last forever. And we don't know what's going to happen to them when they go away. We don't know whether Bank of America, I don't think anyway, is going to buy the back book. I don't think they've announced whether that's going to happen or not. So we don't know if it's going to get transitioned to something else with Barclays, or if you're going to get taken over as an Alaska card onto the Bank of America side. We just don't

know. We know they're going to go away, though. They're not going to keep them. Then you've got, of course, also the consideration that the Hawaiian cards have a nice little feature right now. And that is that if you have a Hawaiian credit card, business or consumer, you can transfer miles to any other customer with a Hawaiian miles account or from their Hawaiian miles account to yours. So it makes your miles combinable, essentially. So you could combine them all on the Hawaiian side and then move them all in one big pile to your Alaska account, for instance. So that's a nice feature of the Hawaiian card, certainly one that makes those popular and

interesting. But the other consideration, the other thing you have to think about is that, you know, Barclays can be tough on approvals, especially on the business side. They can be somewhat difficult to get approved with. On the consumer side, maybe not as much. On the business side, sometimes people just sail through and get the business card easily. Other people have to fax in copies of their social security number and recent utility bills and blah, blah, blah. So sometimes they can be a real pain on the business side. So those are some things to consider on the Hawaiian side.

On the other side of it, the Alaska side, you got the fact, of course, we already said that the premium card is coming in summer of 2025. And so you might say, well, should I wait? Because if I open a Bank of America card now, an Alaska card now, is that going to prevent me from getting the premium card later on? Or you got to keep in mind the Bank of America has got their own application rules. And so how's that going to fit into your plans? And would that potentially prevent you from getting approved for an Alaska premium card? Some business applicants have a little more trouble than others with Bank of America, and not usually as much as with Barclays. But we do sometimes see people get letters that say, hey, you know, can you open a CD in order to get approved for this business card?

So they're not quite as simple as many other issuers either. Not as difficult as Barclays can be, but not necessarily as simple as other issuers all the time anyway. And then, you know, also, of course, you got to consider the fact that the Alaska cards aren't going anywhere like those cards. The bonuses may change, but the Alaska consumer and business cards presumably't going anywhere. Those cards, the bonuses may change, but the Alaska consumer and business cards presumably are here to stay for the long haul. So that, of course, could mean that there's not a hurry to get them right now.

So with all of those considerations out of the way, the last one you have to think about is that any of these consumer cards, if you open the Hawaiian Airlines consumer card or the Bank of America consumer card, that's going to add to your 524 count and potentially prevent you from getting approved for a Chase card in the future. Of course, the business cards aren't going to add to your 524 count. But, of course, Greg said, meh on the bonuses on those. So, a lot going on here, a lot to unpack. What do you think, Greg? I mean, if you have to pick one of these to get right now, which one would it be? Should you get two of them? Should you be considering more of

them? What's the ultimate strategy here? Right, right, right. Well, I don't have an answer, an overall answer here, except it seems to me that it makes sense to wait on the Alaska side. Like, there's no hurry on the Alaska side, and it may very well be that when Alaska comes out with a premium card, if you're interested in it, or even if you're not interested in it, it might have such a nice welcome offer that it's worth getting and keeping for a year at least. So it doesn't seem to me that there's much downside to wait on that side. Hawaiian, though, I mean, we know they're going away.

And so the consumer offer is a good one. I mean, yes, it'll add to your 524 count, but it's a good offer that you can get 70,000 miles after first purchase. And so that's compelling. The other thing I think that people ought to be thinking about is, do you have family members that have points scattered around like a handful of Alaska miles here or there, because this may be our last chance to freely move Alaska miles from one person to another. So I talked on a previous show about how I moved my wife's Alaska miles to my Alaska account by moving them to her Hawaiian miles account. And then because I have a Hawaiian airlines card that allowed her to move, um, the,

her Hawaiian miles freely to me. And then I can move, then I moved the Hawaiian miles to my Alaska account. And that's something that's going to be going away. I mean, I think you talked to an Alaska guy who said he's, they're interested in a feature like that, but yeah, I mean, it didn't sound like it would be, yeah, there's no, there's no guarantee. you talked to in Alaska yeah guy who said he's they're interested in a feature like that but

yeah I mean it didn't sound like it would be yeah there's no there's no guarantee and I didn't get the impression that it would probably work as easily it seemed like it was a feature that they found intriguing and potentially good maybe maybe I if I think back now and now knowing that the premium card is coming maybe that'll be a feature that comes with like the premium card or something. But at the moment, a Hawaiian card is kind of like a dust buster, right? I mean, you can pick up, sweep up all those like loose miles all over the place, suck them all up into your Hawaiian account, and then you can move them right on over to the Alaska side. So it's true. Anybody that you know that has either Hawaiian miles or Alaska miles can make sure they get them onto the Hawaiian side and you can scoop them up into your account. So, yeah, I mean, that is kind then it probably makes sense to get the consumer card so that you get,

A, a good welcome bonus, and B, the ability to kind of pull those miles together into a single account with no cost involved. So, you know, the card has an annual fee, but I mean, no cost involved in moving the miles. Yeah. And just so people know this, either person in the exchange could have a hawaiian card to make it work like whether the person giving the miles or the person receiving the miles has a hawaiian airlines card that makes it freely transferable so you don't have to both have it right so it could be either a dust buster or a leaf blower either way and it just moves those miles around one way or another so so carrie always makes the graphics for our shows.

I'm hoping she shows Nick with a Dustbuster sucking up Hawaiian Airlines credit cards because that would be... Or maybe Alaskan cards? Miles? Well, I guess cards. Since we're talking about the credit cards, it could be the cards,

even though you talked about miles. But anyway. All right. So what do you think about this, Nick? What do you think about this as a gross oversimplification that everybody, you and everybody in your family should be trying to get Hawaiian Airlines cards, whether it be the personal or even the business? It's a meh offer, but it's still going to be going away. And I don't know that we're going to see a better one. So anyway but it's still going to be going away and i don't i don't know that we're going to see a better one so anyway so i'm going to say both uh one or two hawaiian

airlines cards everyone should be getting them nobody should right now be jumping on the alaska card unless you have immediate need for one and that's the strategy until summer 2025 i disagree okay why uh well i don't think should. I think if you're in that situation where you want to be able to combine miles, and obviously you may want to combine them because everybody in your family is going to get a Hawaiian card. So that is a valid strategy if that's what you're looking to do. But I'm not totally convinced that everybody needs to get the Hawaiian cards. And the main reason why is because the welcome offers on Amex cards have just been insane lately. And so the 70,000 miles is nice after first purchase. There's no

doubt about that. But I mean, you might be able to open a business platinum card right now with a 250,000 point bonus. And of course, you might be able to do both because certainly the 70K offer isn't going to prevent you from meeting the spend on whatever else you have the capacity to meet the spend on. But the 70,000 miles alone aren't compelling enough, I don't think. I think if you want to combine miles, that's the reason to get it, I think. Otherwise, and obviously, you won't be able to get it in the future. And once you run through all the Amex cards, well, maybe you'll have missed out on this chance at 70,000 Alaska miles. So when I say I disagree with Greg, I lightly disagree with Greg. I mean, overall, I think he's probably right. But I think in my own situation, I look at it and I say,

well, I'm over 524 right now. I'm going to drop to 424 in July. Do I want my last one to be the Hawaiian consumer card? I won't be able to get it again. So that's true. consumer card i won't be able to get it again so that's true but i also won't be able to get any of the chase cards that i'd like to be able to get until like october or november of next year if i go over 524 is it worth it yeah i mean that's that's an edge case that um you know anytime you make a a yeah oh yeah a broad rule there's gonna be there's gonna be exceptions obviously yeah um yeah so i'm kind of leaning that more towards like because of what you said about the amex cards and the ability to transfer to hawaiian right now um that the hawaiian cards seem perfect for like the people in your family that aren't like playing the game and aren't like into yeah you know yeah figuring out how to do big spend and all that kind of stuff.

They just want to do something easy. And maybe you're the person who books flights anyway, so they're happy to open a card to get the miles, but they move the miles to you because you're going to be booking the flights anyway, that kind of thing. So, you know, the player twos, player threes, player fours, player hadn't really been player yet, but are willing to sign up for the card to help the mileage cause. All of those people, I think the wine cards make sense, especially the personal card, just because it has no spend requirement. That's a great point. You don't have to trust them to be able to meet the spending requirement

or jump through any hoops. They just need to make one purchase on the card after they get it. So that's a really good point. I imagine there's a lot of listeners out there. There are a lot of listeners who are the travel planner in the family. And so, yeah, absolutely. If that's your situation, you've probably got some people that aren't anywhere near 524, aren't thinking about 524, aren't going to open a card where they have to go through the coupon book hoops and whatever else may come along with that. And yeah, the Hawaiian card, the consumer card is perfect for that for the 70,000 miles. And I think Greg's right. I mean, if you do this in a two-player form and you both get

the consumer card, you both get the business card. I mean, it certainly is a nice haul because at the end of the day, you'll have what, 120, 240,000 miles between the two of you just with the Hawaiian cards. And then down the road, get the alaska cards and you know it's even more icing on your cake so um and don't whatever you do don't forget to sign up for the interest list for the alaska premium card because then you get 500 miles just for signing up for the list right and then you'll end of before the end of this year right so you gotta you gotta get that in now we gotta get that done before december 31st but if you can get that done before december 31st then you'll get a bonus 500 miles now and 5 000 additional miles i think on top of whatever the welcome bonus is when the

card comes out if you decide to apply you're not locking yourself in right all right we talked about the wine cards real quick what do you think about my thoughts about the alaska cards that that there's no particular reason to rush to get them now? Just wait and see what happens next year. Well, I disagree. What I disagree with there is, no, I don't even know. Disagree is the wrong way to frame it. That was just a funny way to frame it, really. So when you say there's no rush to get them, I don't know if I'd say there's no rush. I'm not in a rush and I don't think you should be in a rush if you're listening to this either. Overall, I mean, I think you're right because we're going to probably see a 75K offer come

around again in the future. Even if this one ends, I think it's likely we'll see that again. So overall, I think you're right. You shouldn't rush to get it. I think some people will feel rushed because of the best ever offer in nature, but you probably shouldn't because the premium card will probably have a better offer than that. And we'll probably see this kind of offer return on the consumer card. You can't really offer an airline card these days with less than 75,000 miles. So I think if Alaska wants to remain competitive, they're going to have to have it around this level or higher even. Yeah, yeah, I agree. So there you go. I mean, we don't have a crystal ball, so we don't know for sure what the best strategy is, but that's our, I guess, advice for where we think things should go. There you have it.