A few people have asked how to get low cost flights to Maui so I thought I would share a few tricks.

Use Hawaiian Airlines Miles Program

We have a Hawaiian Airlines VISA card through their Hawaiian Miles program. We pass practically every purchase we make though this card and as a result we typically get enough miles for at least one round trip flight a year for no cost. Critical to this trick is to always pay the monthly balance to avoid any interest payments.

After we starting running our finances this way I wondered why we didn’t do it sooner. We only have to worry if there is enough money on our checking account once a month to pay the card balance and you get 30 days to pay for everything interest free. Most of the things I used to have to write a check for each month are now on auto-pay through this card and my life is a lot simpler.

We put all our normal expenses through this card and it is amazing how quickly this adds up. Some examples are:

• Groceries
• Gas
• Monthly cell phone bill
• Monthly cable TV bill
• Water bill
• Garbage bill
• Gym memberships
• Dining out
• Any large purchases (appliances, furniture)

When you sign up you get extra bonus miles and if you take the application they hand out on the plane you get even more bonus miles.

HawaiianMiles are earned 1 HawaiianMile per 1$ spent or mile flown and are at 10:1, you will need 25,000 HawaiianMiles to fly one way 2,500 miles (for us) to Maui.

Certain purchases earn 2x or more than usual. Look at their partners program.

We like this program better than the Alaska Airlines miles program because we can pool all of our miles together from all family members at no additional cost. Alaska charges you so much to transfer miles it it ends up not being worth it. However they have an awesome companion fare feature – see below.

Use Alaska Airlines Companion Fare

We also have an Alaska Airlines VISA that we use when flying on Alaska Airlines. While we do earn miles for flying, we don’t use this card for purchasing anything except Alaska Airline tickets themselves because you get 3x bonus miles that way. The beauty of this card is that each year you are awarded a companion fare. This allows you to buy a second ticket anywhere they fly for $99 (plus tax). The card itself has a $75 yearly fee, so for about $175 you can get a second round trip to Maui each year. If more than one family member also has this card, you can get that many companion fares each year. You get 25,000 bonus miles when you sign up, and usually they have extra bonus miles if you take the application from the flight attendant.

We don’t use this card for normal purchases to get miles because they make it prohibitively expensive to share miles with others.

Book in Advance

We always book our next flight immediately after we return from Hawaii, about 4 months or more ahead of time.

View Fares by Month

When you are browsing online for ticket prices, use the “view fares by month” or similar feature on the web site. You will be amazed at the difference in price leaving one day sooner or later than the day you might have picked. In the high season leaving on a Tuesday for example can be half the cost of leaving on Sunday or Monday.

Travel in the Off Season

This may be easier said than done but if you have the option, going in September or October will be the lowest cost. If it has turned cold where you live, it will be expense to fly to Maui. If it is a school vacation time, expect to pay double.

Hope this helps you save some money!