Business class to Hawaii - is it impossible?

[dukerau]

1. What route are you looking for?
CLT-HNL/OGG/LIH, round trip

2. What dates do you want to travel (mention how flexible you are)?
Very flexible. Rough target of October (preferably structured around Columbus Day) for ~1week and change. But also considering spring of 2017.

3. Do you want to fly first, business, or coach? (maybe also "are you willing to fly coach for a positioning flight")
Business. Coach is OK for short hop. Would settle for Business just on the inbound.

4. How many passengers?
2

5. How many points do you have, in which programs?
AA: Enough to book standard Business awards (though I don't want to)
UA: 100k
DL: 100k
UR: ~500k
MR: ~300k
TY: ~200k
SPG: ~100k
LH: ~100k
BA: ~200k

I can't find any saver availability in J. Anytime. Does it exist? Perhaps close-in or 330 days out?

I even considered 150k VS miles to fly on VA, but (a) I don't know how to search availability on VA, (b) VA doesn't serve CLT, so I'd have to position, and (c) have to route via SFO or LAX, making for an unpleasant itinerary (5hr "overnight" flight).

 

[stellar]

Sharing timelines/thoughts in case it helps:

Are you looking out of gateway West coast cities?
I booked a Delta F flight in May from OGG - PHX. I booked it back in January. It routes through Seattle, but that was fine for me.

 

[Hanaleiradio]

You're not doing anything wrong--finding J to Hawaii from anyplace but a west coast gateway is one of the most difficult awards to book. I often have luck on UA to HNL. I just did a quick search on UA and found decent availability in Oct on CLT-HNL via IAH, and even a few via ORD.

I transfer MR pts to Singapore Krisflyer and then book the flight on UA metal. Hawaii is one of the sweetspots on the SQ charts: 60k RT for J! It usually takes 24-48 hours for MR transfer to show up in Krisflyer account, so there is a risk that the space disappears. But I've only had that happen once. I use SQ miles for ORD/HNL nonstop--don't know if it would be same savings on a connection from CLT. To determine, use the UA website to locate a flight in saver J, and then go to SQ website and price it out in Krisflyer miles.

 

[smittytabb]

1. What route are you looking for?
CLT-HNL/OGG/LIH, round trip

2. What dates do you want to travel (mention how flexible you are)?
Very flexible. Rough target of October (preferably structured around Columbus Day) for ~1week and change. But also considering spring of 2017.

3. Do you want to fly first, business, or coach? (maybe also "are you willing to fly coach for a positioning flight")
Business. Coach is OK for short hop. Would settle for Business just on the inbound.

4. How many passengers?
2

5. How many points do you have, in which programs?
AA: Enough to book standard Business awards (though I don't want to)
UA: 100k
DL: 100k
UR: ~500k
MR: ~300k
TY: ~200k
SPG: ~100k
LH: ~100k
BA: ~200k

I can't find any saver availability in J. Anytime. Does it exist? Perhaps close-in or 330 days out?

I even considered 150k VS miles to fly on VA, but (a) I don't know how to search availability on VA, (b) VA doesn't serve CLT, so I'd have to position, and (c) have to route via SFO or LAX, making for an unpleasant itinerary (5hr "overnight" flight).

I am sure this is outdated, but it at least explores some options you may have not considered. Generally, it's the best thing I've seen regarding this topic.

http://travelisfree.com/2014/08/12/cheapest-ways-to-get-to-hawaii-using-miles/