It’s official: American Express transfers to Hawaiian Airlines (and to Alaska Airlines) end June 30

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Bad news, Alaska Airlines fans: American Express Membership Rewards will end transfers to HawaiianMiles on June 30.

This effectively ends transfers from Membership Rewards to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan.

Since the middle of last year, HawaiianMiles have been transferable to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, giving Amex cardholders an indirect way to transfer their Membership Rewards points to Alaska Airlines. Alaska Airlines introduced this feature after it acquired Honolulu-based Hawaiian Airlines last year.

While there's no official statement from American Express at the time of writing, the bank is posting this news on the points transfer page of the American Express website and mobile app.

This gives American Express cardholders about a month and a half to transfer their points to HawaiianMiles (and then to Mileage Plan). While we don't usually recommend speculative transfers from a credit card points program to a particular airline or hotel partner, this could be an exception for Alaska Airlines and Oneworld fans. That's because Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan offers some of the best award rates on short-haul domestic flights and transatlantic business-class flights from the East Coast.

For example, an economy flight on American Airlines with a distance of under 700 miles often requires only 4,500 Alaska miles, and a transatlantic business-class flight between 1,501 and 3,500 miles starts at just 45,000 miles on partner airlines such as Aer Lingus. In many cases, these prices are significantly lower than competing Oneworld loyalty programs like American Airlines AAdvantage.

Related: You may want to transfer your Amex points to HawaiianMiles (and then to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan) soon

How to transfer Membership Rewards points to Hawaiian Airlines (and Alaska Airlines)

Transferring Amex Membership Rewards points to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan is a two-step process.

First, you need to transfer your Membership Rewards points to HawaiianMiles on your American Express account's "Rewards & Benefits" page. You can transfer up to 999,000 Membership Rewards points to Hawaiian per day. In our experience, Membership Rewards points transfer instantly to Hawaiian, though Amex says it can take up to two days.

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If you plan to transfer points from Membership Rewards to Hawaiian before June 30, note that you will pay an excise tax offset fee of 0.06 cents per mile, up to a maximum of $99 per transfer. You can charge this fee to an American Express card or cover it with Membership Rewards points. However, we do not recommend redeeming points to cover the fee since you'll only get 0.5 cents per point in value.

Once you transfer Membership Rewards points to Hawaiian, you can use the airline's points transfer tool to move points between your Hawaiian and Alaska accounts. These transfers also process instantly in most cases.

Bottom line

While it's unfortunate that Membership Rewards points will no longer be transferable to Hawaiian Airlines (and, by proxy, Alaska Airlines), we expected this change. Alaska Airlines has been transparent about its plans to soon merge HawaiianMiles into Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan and eventually phase out credit card transfers.

That said, Bilt Rewards Points transfer to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, too, so travelers still have one way to earn Alaska miles with a transferable points card.

If you plan to fly with Alaska and its partners soon, you might consider transferring some of your Membership Rewards points to HawaiianMiles (and then to Mileage Plan) before it's too late. Alaska miles are among the most valuable in the points and miles space, largely due to the program's low award prices and an extensive list of nonalliance partners. If you do this, however, you will give up some flexibility and could leave your Alaska miles open to devaluation if you don't redeem them quickly.