V-Flyer

Hi all,
I have my London to LA tickets in the pocket (and got the G upgrade for the VS7 !) but to top up the holidays, we are planning to add 7-8 days in Hawaii ...
I'm looking at my options for flights and preference would go to Delta or Hawaiian as they are the cheapest options but also as they are VS partners.
For the LAX-HNL leg, we will have been in LA for a while so not relevant, however on the way back, we will fly HNL-LAX and onwards to LHR on our VS flight.
Is there any chance for me to have both bookings linked so we can have our luggage going through LAX without having to re check them ?
What are my options in this matter ?
Many thanks in advance !

Is it just price, or FC points you are after..?

You will have a great time. We've been to LA before and actually returned from Hawaii yesterday. As we'd been to LA before and were limited with time we flew straight to Hawaii (no stay in LA). Because of this when we booked flights via phone to VS our bags were interlined as the flights were part of one booking. Your case is different but essentially whether your bags are interlined depends on whether your VS and HA/DL flights are purchased in one booking. Maybe worth ringing VS!

In terms of HA/DL I only have experience on HA. Good punctuality - all flights arrived early, 2 of 3 daily flights from LAX-HNL on newer a330s. Only airline on route to offer complimentary inflight meal though not hugely elaborate (pasta dish outbound - dinner and fresh fruit for inbound breakfast). I enjoyed my HA experience on the whole but: each seat has tv but have to pay for all movies/tv shows ( think DL has some free movies), on return HNL-LAX the check in at airport is largely self service (have to weigh bags and print own luggage tags + boarding pass). This was a bit of a pain as we had done some shopping and without scales at hotel unaware of bag weights so took 20mins reshuffling. Also worth noting that unless your flights are interlined with VS you won't get their baggage restrictions so on HA means paying for each checked bag.

For us on our return leg, timings made the journey even longer. (5hr wait at LAX T2 ) So you might base your decision on timings or return via SFO. It was quite frustrating arriving (with bags checked through) early on HA10 at 4pm with VS 8 back to London boarding 2 gates down. Would've chosen this but connection time too short.

Sorry for the long post but hope it helps. And the straight HNL-LAX-LHR isn't as painfully long as it looks

Daniel Armstrong wrote:Is it just price, or FC points you are after..?

Daniel, I suppose the best combination of both ... Not being greedy

FLYERZ, thanks ever so much for sharing your experience !
To give you a bit more insight, we are flying with VS (got that elusive G upgrade sorted !) on 23rd Jan.
We stay in LA for a week and then plan to fly to HNL on 30th Jan and back to LA on 7th Feb on time to catch VS8.
So LHR-LAX-LHR flights are booked but I need to add the LAX-HNL-LAX flights at some point. Still find the price a bit high for the time being (around £380pp) so waiting for a better deal but I'm not sure what's the best way ...

In that case I don't think it would be possible to check your bags through all the way :/ But you might want to ring up and check. When I asked VS for my trip they said that generally the policy is that the flights must be under one booking. Also on another trip I did to Cusco, Peru I had flights on Iberia and LAN both oneworld partners but they said they didn't interline bags. But even if you can't interline bags as HNL-LAX counts as domestic you don't have to clear immigration so picking up bags and re-checking in should be quick and easy.

Have to agree with Flyerz - from what I can make out its one booking to keep bags sorted. However, if they are partner airlines it is worth calling up and seeing what they can do to help. Also, at check-in they might be able to help you out.

For points it would have to be Delta - or you could call FC and book through them? That may even help with your bags being on one booking?

But wouldn't you get the same number of miles with Hawaiian Airlines....as a partner airline

I think I will call FC when the time has come to book and figure it out with them. If I can't make the luggage go through, I'll do the long way, no biggie but I will make sure that I have plenty of time in LAX to connect ... I'm hoping to get a G on the way back too... (good to dream, eh ?)