If you haven’t already heard the big news that was announced a few days ago, Alaska Airlines is going to be buying Hawaiian Airlines for about $1.9 billion.

So if you’re like me, the first question on your mind was what that means for award travelers. (I also wondered about whether they’ll have a new logo and what that might look like, but the award-travel question was definitely first.)

The short answer: We don’t know yet and we probably won’t know for a while, but overall it’s probably going to be good or neutral news for points-and-miles enthusiasts.

The long answer: Well, where do we start? Well, just like Julie Andrews, we’re going to start at the beginning.

Hawaiian Airlines and Alaska Airlines have historically been independent from any of the major airline alliances (Star Alliance, SkyTeam, and Oneworld). But they weren’t lone wolves without any mileage earning or redeeming reciprocity with any other airlines. They each had several airline partners that could credit you with Alaska MileagePlan or HawaiianMiles when you flew them. And you could also use Alaska MileagePlan miles or HawaiianMiles to fly on the partner airlines. Each set of partners was a motley crew made up of independents and airlines from all three major alliances. Here are their erstwhile partners:

In 2021, Alaska became a member of the Oneworld alliance, which made a certain kind of logical sense because a lot of its airline partners were already in Oneworld. So Alaska’s Oneworld status means it now has full reciprocity with all the other Oneworld airlines. (In addition, Alaska still maintains some additional partners outside of Oneworld, though you don’t get the full benefits of any Oneworld status you might have with these additional partners.)

When this acquisition is finalized (in a year or so), Hawaiian/Alaska will also become a member of Oneworld.

From what I’ve read so far, it seems likely that Alaska will stay Alaska and Hawaiian will stay Hawaiian, but both brands will be combined under the same corporate umbrella and likely use the same mileage currency. I’m guessing we’ll end up seeing something like the Avios mileage currency used by British Airways, Aer Lingus, Iberia, and Qatar: we may be able to transfer the common mileage currency between Alaska and Hawaiian, and it’d be relatively easy to treat award redemptions on the combined airline the same. I’m guessing they’ll have one cohesive award chart for all their Oneworld-alliance partners, and both Alaska and Hawaiian might maintain some or most of their non-Oneworld partners, too.

What does this mean for you?

If you have status with either Alaska or Hawaiian, both airlines have indicated that you’ll retain your status under the new structure and it will be whatever the equivalent status is on the partner airline. So instead of having status on one airline with one set of routes, you’ll have status on both. And anyone who has high status on Hawaiian will presumably be mapped over to an equivalent Oneworld status (e.g., Emerald, Sapphire), which will get you access to lounges, upgrades, and whatever other Oneworld benefits are available, just like Alaska’s MileagePlan status holders were when they joined the alliance.

If you ever fly Alaska or Hawaiian, this means you’ll have access to a larger network of flights. For Alaska customers, there will be opportunities to cross the Pacific on Hawaiian’s Asian and Oceanian routes. For Hawaiian, Alaska’s numerous destinations in the continental US and Central America will also allow access to a much larger network.

The airlines’ announcements also included statements about their intent to ensure that they promote, maintain, and respect Hawaiian culture and the local Hawaiian workforce, which is great to hear.

What do you think about this deal? Let me know in the comments!