One of the greatest benefits to Hawaiian Airlines being acquired by Alaska Airlines will be their (presumed) membership in the Oneworld Alliance. I know many Hawaiian fliers aren’t familiar with what this means for them, so I put together a guide to Mileage Plan Oneworld benefits today to kind of preview the future.
We already know that HawaiianMiles members will enjoy enhanced benefits under the merged Alaska Mileage Plan-HawaiianMiles loyalty program. However, these benefits extend beyond Mileage Plan’s own benefits thanks to Alaska Airlines’ membership with Oneworld. But if you aren’t familiar with airline alliances, especially since Hawaiian isn’t a member of one, this will all be new to you. Today, I’m here to (hopefully) help.
Guide to Mileage Plan Oneworld Benefits
Now, before we get into this guide to Mileage Plan Oneworld benefits, I should state that there is a chance that Hawaiian Airlines may not become an official member of Oneworld, which would negate this post. There is precedence for this, as Aer Lingus isn’t an Oneworld member (though they used to be), despite IAG (British Airways & Iberia) in 2015. But it does seem like Alaska management plans on adding Hawaiian, so we should be good.
Oneworld Status
The first topic we should tackle in my guide to Mileage Plan Oneworld benefits is status. At the alliance level, Oneworld offers three different statuses under the “Oneworld Priority” moniker:
- Ruby
- Access to Business Class check-in lines
- Complimentary preferred or pre-reserved seating
- Priority waitlist on standby
- Sapphire
- Ruby benefits plus/or:
- Access to Business Class lounges
- Priority Boarding
- Excess baggage allowance
- Priority baggage handling
- Emerald
- Sapphire/Ruby benefits plus/or:
- Access to First and Business Class lounges
- Access to First and Business Class check-in lines
- Fast Track/Priority Lane access at select airports
Under Alaska Airlines, you’ll receive the above statuses as follows:
- MVP – Ruby
- MVP Gold – Sapphire
- MVP Gold 75K – Emerald
- MVP Gold 100k – Emerald
As you can see, all tiers have some useful benefits, especially since both Hawaiian and Alaska have preferred seats, which are virtually all window and aisle seats for at least half of the Main Cabin. By the way, these are not Extra Comfort or Premium Class seats – they’re standard Main Cabin seats that come with an uncharge for being slightly more desirable than the rest. They’re usually accessible to base-level elite members of the airlines’ frequent flyer program, but as an Oneworld member, you get access to them for free with almost every member airline.
Enhanced Oneworld Flight Benefits
The above benefits are enhanced a bit when flying with Alaska’s Oneworld domestic partner – American Airlines.
- MVP members can access AA Main Cabin Extra seats 24 hours prior to departure, while MVP Golds and up can select these seats at the time of booking
- On domestic flights, MVP and up are eligible for upgrades, but only by one class level, so Main Cabin to Premium Economy and Premium Economy to Business/First. Upgrades are confirmed at 72 hours before departure for MVP Gold 75k/100k, 48 hours for MVP Gold, and 24 hours for MVP
- MVPs get one free checked bag when traveling in Main Cabin, MVP Golds get two, and MVP Gold 75k/100k get three
- Complimentary same-day upgrades are available for MVP Gold 75k/100k
- MVP Golds 75ks receive a free AAdvantage one-way international upgrade certificate, while MVP 100ks get two more certificates
Of course, your upgrade priority differs based on whether you’re flying American or Alaska. When flying Alaska, upgrades clear in the following order:
- Alaska MVP Gold 100K
- Alaska MVP Gold 75K
- American AAdvantage Concierge Key, Executive Platinum, and Platinum Pro members (all of which are Oneworld Emerald status)
- Alaska MVP Gold
- American AAdvantage Platinum (oneworld Sapphire)
- Alaska MVP
- American AAdvantage Gold members (oneworld Ruby)
But when you’re flying with American, the upgrade priority is as follows:
- American elites with oneworld Emerald status (AAdvantage® Concierge Key, Executive Platinum, and Platinum Pro)
- Alaska Elite members with oneworld Emerald Priority Tier (MVP Gold 75k and MVP Gold 100k)
- American AAdvantage Platinum (oneworld Sapphire)
- Alaska MVP Gold
- American AAdvantage Gold members (oneworld Ruby)
- Alaska MVP
Baggage Benefit
While I touched on this in the last section, there are some quirks surrounding the baggage benefit, which I’ll cover next in my guide to Mileage Plan Oneworld benefits. For airlines that do not offer complimentary bags for domestic travel (like American), your extra bag in Main Cabin turns into a free checked bag and follows American’s benefit detailed above. However, for airlines that do offer a complimentary checked bag in the back, you’d get two free checked bags as a Ruby, and so forth.
On international itineraries, you get one free additional checked bag (two total) in Main Cabin. In all instances, you checked bags cannot exceed 50 lbs for these benefits. For airlines that use overall weight rather than number of pieces to quantify checked bags, you’ll receive an additional 15kgs of allowance, which equates to 33lbs.
Lounge Access
Next up in my guide to Mileage Plan Oneworld benefits, I’d like to cover lounge access as, again, it isn’t as cut and dry as the benefit list would have you believe. In fact, Alaska Mileage Plan members can only access Oneworld lounges when traveling outside of the country or while traveling domestically when they have a same-day international connection.
This means that Alaska Mileage Plan MVP Golds and up will be able to access the JAL Sakura Lounge or Qantas Lounge in Honolulu only when flying to Japan on Japan or Hawaiian Airlines – you won’t be able to access these lounges when traveling to New York or Boston on Hawaiian, even though the flight is longer.
It’s also worth mentioning that if you’re an Alaska Lounge member, that won’t grant you access to other lounges in the Oneworld network. You must meet the above criteria to access Oneworld lounges, regardless of your paid membership.
Certain lounges are also excluded from Oneworld access. These include the American/British Chelsea Lounge at JFK, all British Airways Concorde Lounges, and Qatar’s Al Safwa First and Al Mourjan Business lounges in Doha, and Qatar Airways’ Premium Lounges.
Earn & Redeem
Next up in my guide to Mileage Plan Oneworld benefits is reciprocal mileage benefits. You see, unlike other partners, such as codeshare partners, you can earn and redeem Mileage Plan miles, plus elite qualification miles, with all Oneworld alliance member airlines. However, each airline has its own chart, with some (such as Qatar) having multiple charts depending on whether you’re on a flight with an Alaska Airlines number or not. To keep things simple, I’ll link the relevant charts below:
- American Airlines
- British Airways
- Cathay Pacific
- Fiji Airways
- Finnair
- Iberia
- Japan Airlines
- Malaysia Airlines
- Qantas
- Qatar Airways
- Royal Air Maroc
- Royal Jordanian
- SriLankan Airlines
Round The World Ticket
Finally, as I close out my guide to Mileage Plan Oneworld benefits, I’d like to briefly touch on a cool perk of most airline alliances – Round The World tickets. Oneworld offers several different versions, including regional tickets and true global tickets. There are different rules for each of these tickets, including maximum miles flow, the ability to travel only in one direction, maximum number of stopovers, etc. Since there are so many different variations, I encourage you to explore each program in greater detail if you’re interested.
That said, the benefit of the above programs is that you can do all of this travel on a single itinerary. This means that if something happens on one part of your trip, it should be easier to get things straightened out once again, and an issue such as a mechanical or weather delay won’t screw you over the same way it would if you were traveling on all separate itineraries.
Further, you can bove Oneworld Round The World tickets in any class of service you like. You’ll also earn miles and elite qualifying miles on these flights. Unfortunately, redeeming for these flights isn’t an option today, though I wish it’s something they’d work on making possible.
Guide to Mileage Plan Oneworld Benefits, Final Thoughts
There you have it. That’s my guide to Mileage Plan Oneworld benefits. I hope this helps break down the new, upcoming alliance-level benefits HawaiianMiles Pualani members have to look forward to. Yes, there are quite a few restrictions on those benefits, but they’re things you didn’t have access to before and will give greater value to your status. It’s also why I’m encouraging you all to qualify for as high a status as you can this year so that you can enjoy better status with Alaska next year.