Triangle Trip

1. Pre-Clear at departing airport. We left SJC on Sunday morning. Everyones got TSA-Pre nowadays and they only have one x-ray line but two for normal security that TSA is slower. Across from your gate, you will be able to get a pre clear wristband for Hawaii. Just show them your QR code from Hawaii Safe Travels, COVID vaccine card and your picture ID. Another tip kids 5 and under cannot get a wristband.
2. Arriving at HNL you’ll be split into two lines, wrists bands or not. Follow the signs closely, if you got a wristband, you don’t need to show your QR code.
3. Take pictures of your Vaccination Card on your phone so you don’t need to carry the physical ones. Most restaurants will take the pictures as proof + picture ID.
4. Masks are still required indoor and people here strictly follow.

Update – March 26, 2022 No pre clearing requirements to enter Hawaii! Great news.

For residents in the Bay Area looking to rent a car at San Jose Airport (SJC), you may wonder where do you drop off and pick up a person.  Of course you can walk over to the arrivals/departures area in Terminal B but there is a passenger pick-up area for car rentals.

When driving, follow the car rental return signs which wraps around the building but as soon as you start entering the building structure, you’ll have a sign that points you to go up to car rental return to the left or continue and veer right back outside to wait for passengers.  The best thing there is no traffic cop enforcement so you can wait around for your friend to finish returning his car.

With the pending merger between Alaska Airlines and Virgin America, Alaska will be merging its Mileage Plan with Virgin America’s Elevate Frequent Flyer programs. Virgin America’s Elevate Points will be converted to Alaska Mileage Plan miles at a rate of 1.3 Mileage Plan miles per 1 Elevate point. Unlike previous airline frequent flyer program conversions where it’s 1:1, the Virgin to Alaska miles conversion will net you 30% more miles. Everyone should try to earn more Virgin Elevate Points before the merger of the two frequent flyer programs.

Given Alaska’s generosity, we also recommend you move your hotel points to Virgin America’s Elevate points. For example, transferring your Starwood (SPG) Starpoints to Virgin America Elevate points is 1 Starpoint for 1 Elevate Point. If you transferred 20,000 SPG Starpoints, SPG would give you another 5,000 points for the transfer. After transferring the SPG Starpoints to Virgin Elevate Points and the Alaska Virgin frequent flyer merger, you can net up to 63% bonus in Alaska miles. We highly recommend you execute the above strategy before the Alaska and Virgin America programs merge on January 9, 2017.

Here are two related articles you may also find interesting:

If you are not an Alaska Airlines frequent flyer or do not want to maintain too many airline accounts, did you know that you can bank your airline miles with SkyTeam and OneWorld partners!? Click here to find out.

Here’s an article on why we think hotel points are more valuable than airline miles.