Book Cheap Flights to Hawaii This Year (Including Crafty Ways to Fly Lie-Flat)

Everyone wants to go to Hawaii, and that means there’s high demand for flights to the picture-perfect islands. But that high demand doesn’t mean you should expect high prices – just the opposite. 

In the last few days, we sent our Thrifty Traveler Premium members two different alerts for some of the lowest fares we’ve ever seen from all across the country to Hawaii and back: from $248 or from 42,000 points roundtrip! 

Plus, we’ve also been finding great availability to use your points and miles to fly lie-flat first class suites from just 40,000 points each way .. .or using a sneaky upgrade workaround that will cost you even less. (More on that later!)

This phenomenal run of Hawaii flight deals comes at a great time: Right before summer and when flights to Hawaii are available to book for next winter, too. And remember, Hawaii offers year-round, picture-perfect 80-degree weather and sunny skies…

So put a Hawaii trip back on your list for 2025 or 2026, because you might just as soon cross it off with a flight deal like one of these.

Booked a cheap flight to Hawaii? Check out these tips to save on your lodging, too! 

How & Where to Find Hawaii Flight Deals

Getting a cheap flight to Hawaii is never a sure thing. Paying $600 to more than $1,000 (or more) per ticket can be the norm, and travelers can go months without seeing even a halfway decent deal to the islands.

But that’s not always true. Fare wars are heating up as airlines compete for passengers to fill all their seats flying to the Hawaiian islands by slashing prices, leading to some especially good flight deals lately. In the last few weeks alone, we’ve found and sent Thrifty Traveler Premium members alerts for cheap flights from airports nationwide, all for under $400 roundtrip … and often far less!

Exhibit A: This widespread flight deal for all four major Hawaiian islands through the fall and winter that we sent our subscribers just last week. 

The lowest fare in this deal is from L.A., where LAX flyers could see a $246 roundtrip fare! 

But that’s not the lowest price from the West Coast to Hawaii that we’ve seen. A few months ago, we found a grouping of $180 or $190 roundtrip fares!

These sizzling fares started many a Hawaii trip for our subscribers in California.

Your flights to Hawaii shouldn’t be the most expensive part of your trip. We can help make that a reality. All you have to do is pick the best island to visit in Hawaii for your cheap trip! 

Booked a cheap flight to Hawaii? Follow these tips to save on your lodging, too!

Use Points & Miles to Get to Hawaii

Why pay cash when you can use your points and miles to get to Hawaii instead? You’ve been earning and saving up those points and Hawaii is the perfect way to use them. 

On top of cheap cash flights, we’ve also been finding some exceptional award deals to these islands and instantly alerting our Thrifty Traveler Premium members about them. 

Delta SkyMiles rates can be astronomically high for Hawaii flights … but there’s another way to book Delta using your credit card points. 

The key is to transfer your points from cards like the *csp* or the *capital one venture card* to Air France/KLM Flying Blue. The European carriers are partners with Delta, meaning you can book Delta flights using Flying Blue miles – and often at far, far lower rates than what Delta itself would charge you. 

Whether you’re earning American Express, Capital One, Chase, or Citi points or even Wells Fargo or Bilt points, you could transfer them to Flying Blue to get the miles you need to book these flights to Hawaii and back. 

Read more: 5 Ways to Book Flights to Hawaii with Points & Miles

Lie-Flat to Hawaii for Less

There’s a single-best way to fly to Hawaii. It’s in Hawaiian Airlines’ new first class suites.

This fancy new Hawaiian Airlines suite is lie-flat and has fully enclosed doors. After Hawaiian put it on sale last year, it also made it bookable with points through Virgin Atlantic and the airline itself.

Booking with Hawaiian doesn’t mean you need to have flown the airline a ton to have enough miles to take advantage of this deal: For a few more weeks, you can transfer points from American Express to the airline to book these seats. If you have credit card points from Amex as well as nearly any of the other major banks like Capital One, Chase, or Citi, you can also transfer them to Virgin Atlantic. This is a spectacular use of points and miles that few travelers know about. 

And while the Suites only fly to and from some cities, you can fly Hawaiian’s slightly older lie-flat seats from all of these cities for that 40,000-point rate, too!

A New, Sneaky Way to Book Hawaiian First Class for Less

This one’s for the more adventurous among us! We sent a patented Nerd Alert to our members showing them how to expand your chances of getting a lie-flat seat to Honolulu (HNL) this year – even when it appears there’s no award space available. 

This is done by upgrading with Hawaiian miles after booking a Main Cabin ticket. Here’s how to do it: 

First, you book Main Cabin, and then you hunt down some “saver” upgrades on Hawaiian using your Hawaiian miles or transferring them in from American Express. 

These prices might be some of the best ways to get a lie-flat seat, period. I’ll be hunting for one of these upgrade deals in the coming weeks myself!

Bottom Line

Hawaii flights don’t have to be expensive. 

Airlines are slashing flight prices to Hawaii for 2025 and 2026 in economy and even first class. 

So feel confident booking one of these Thrifty Traveler Premium flight deals. It’s the difference between paying $800-plus for your next trip to Hawaii … or less than half that.