Hawaiian Airlines® World Elite Mastercard® review: Solid perks for Hawaiian trips

The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card offers flexible miles that you can also transfer to eligible travel partners. For a slightly lower annual fee of $95 (See Rates & Fees), you’ll earn unlimited 2X miles on general spending. The Venture Rewards card also offers $250 to use on Capital One Travel in your first cardholder year, plus 75,000 miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within the first 3 months of account opening. Essentially, you’ll get a better return on spending with Hawaiian but more flexibility with Capital One.

Another significant difference between these two cards is the reward categories. While the highest earning category for the Hawaiian Airlines World Elite is 3X miles for Hawaiian Airlines purchases, the Capital One Venture Rewards card earns 5X miles on hotels, vacation rentals and rental cars you book through the Capital One Travel portal. Both have restrictions, but the Capital One Venture Rewards can offer more value. Also, the base rewards rate for the Capital One Venture is 2X miles versus 1X miles for the Hawaiian Airlines World Elite, making the Venture Rewards card more lucrative overall. 

By offering solid earning rates on Hawaiian Airlines purchases, companion discounts on travel, and in-flight perks for elite members, the Hawaiian card serves its loyal customers best. The discounts offered easily offset the annual fee and provide excellent ongoing value.

If you’re thinking of a Hawaiian vacation, the welcome bonus on the Hawaiian card can go a long way toward booking award flights for you and your family. Depending on how you book, you could have enough for two round-trip tickets from the welcome offer, which makes it that much easier to plan your Hawaiian travels.

The primary criteria for a rewards or cash back card’s rating is its rewards value. This includes the card’s average rewards rate, estimated annual rewards earnings, sign-up bonus value and reward redemption value.

To estimate a card’s average annual rewards earnings, we first calculate its average rewards rate based on how much it earns in different bonus categories and how closely its categories align with the average person’s spending habits, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The most recent BLS data estimates average total spending in 2022 was $72,967 per consumer. We then narrow our focus to which purchases are likely to be put on a credit card and earn rewards, subtracting expenditures like housing, vehicle purchases and education. This gives us a total “chargeable” annual spend of around $22,500.  

Some of the major spending categories that contribute towards the annual spend include:

• Groceries: $5,700
• Dining out: $3,600
• Entertainment: $2,400
• Gas: $3,100
• Apparel and services: $1,900

Using this data, we assign a weighting to each of a card’s bonus categories. For example, a card’s grocery rewards rate receives a 22 percent weighting based on how much of the average person’s budget is spent on groceries. We also estimate the redemption value of points or miles from various issuer, airline and hotel rewards programs.

This weighting and rewards valuation allows us to estimate a card’s average annual rewards earnings — how many points or miles you’d earn with a given card if your spending was about average and you used the card for all of your purchases, as well as what those points are worth. We also use point valuations to determine a card’s sign-up bonus value.

With these calculations complete, we assign each card a score based on how its average rewards earnings, sign-up bonus value, rewards rate and redemption value stack up against other rewards cards.

We also rate cards based on how much it costs to keep them in your wallet or carry a balance. 

To start, each rewards or cash back card is scored based on whether it offers an intro APR and how its ongoing APR compares to the rates available on other rewards or cash back cards. 

We also score each card based on how its annual fee influences its overall value. 

We consider a card’s annual fee in two ways — how it ranks relative to the fees you’ll find on other cards in the category and how it impacts a card’s overall rewards value. Cards with an annual fee will always be at a slight disadvantage in our scoring system since annual fees inherently cut into your rewards value, but if a card offers terrific value via its ongoing rewards and perks, it can earn a high score even if it carries a high annual fee. 

With this in mind, we rate a card based primarily on how its ongoing rewards value and ongoing perk value (such as annual credits or bonuses) stack up against other cards in the category when you subtract its annual fee.

We rate each card’s flexibility based on the restrictions it imposes on earning and redeeming rewards and factor this rating into a card’s overall score. 

Flexibility factors include whether a card only allows you to earn a high rewards rate on a small amount of spending or requires you to meet a certain earning threshold before you can redeem rewards. We also examine whether your points are worth less when you redeem for some options versus others and whether a card gives you the flexibility to transfer rewards to airline and hotel partners. 

We also score each card’s set of features – its perks and benefits — against five tiers of features to provide a rating. 

We break down these tiers as follows:

• Tier 1 has less than standard card features (an ultra-streamlined card that offers basic utility and next to nothing in the way of ancillary benefits. 
• Tier 2 includes the benefits you’d expect on standard Visa or Mastercard credit cards, such as free access to your credit score, car rental insurance and $0 liability for fraudulent charges. 
• Tier 3 includes “prime card” or better-than-average card features like cellphone insurance, lost luggage insurance, concierge services and purchase protection. 
• Tier 4 includes luxury features such as airport lounge access, elite status with an airline or hotel and credits for expedited security screening membership programs. 
• Tier 5 includes the sort of exemplary benefits you’ll find on top-tier luxury cards, such as high-value travel credits, cardholder memberships and other unique and valuable perks.

American Express Membership Rewards lists Hawaiian Airlines as one of its transfer partners. However, Amex charges an excise tax offset fee of $0.0006 per point (maximum $99) to cover the costs they must pay when transferring points to U.S. airline frequent flyer programs. You can pay the fee with cash or additional points, but you’ll get poor value from your points.

It’s recommended that you have a good credit score or greater to receive approval. A FICO score of 670 or higher or a VantageScore of 660 or higher is considered good credit.

You can book redemptions with partners using HawaiianMiles by contacting the HawaiianMiles Service Center. Also, only round-trip partner awards are available when booked with HawaiianMiles.