I’m sure all locals know that Foodland Hawai’i allows you to earn HawaiianMiles via their Maika’i Rewards program. Typically, the conversion rates for this aren’t the greatest, which isn’t surprising. But, sometimes (like now), the value proposition goes up. So here’s your reminder to earn 2x HawaiianMiles with Foodland!
Like many other grocery stores, Foodland Hawai’i has its own reward program. But, to me, it’s one of the better programs out there. The reason for this is it gives you more choices on the redemption side of things and offers greater value. For example, Safeway for U lets you redeem 1,000 points for a $15 discount off a grocery purchase or 100 points for $0.10 off per gallon at participating gas stations. Foodland, on the other hand, allows you to redeem 1,000 points for a $25 discount on groceries. In contrast, other options are available for free deli meals, free grocery deliveries, a free reusable bag, or, of course, HawaiianMiles.
Not all Maika’i Rewards HawaiianMiles redemptions are created equal, though. You see, there are two redemption levels; one is 250 points for 200 HawaiianMiles, and the other is 1,000 points for 1,000 HawaiianMiles. 200 HawaiianMiles are worth $2.60 and would cost you $4 to purchase outright, while 1,000 HawaiianMiles equate to $13.60 in value and would typically cost you $20 to purchase outright. Looking at this, clearly, the $25 discount on groceries for 1,000 points is the best value, right? Not always.
You see, from time to time, there are Maika’i Redemption promotions. Sometimes, you can get up to $13.99 in poke for free by redeeming 500 points, putting the value of the points at about $0.28 (instead of $0.025 for the $25 grocery discount). But when you can earn 2x HawaiianMiles with Foodland during their Hawaiian promotions that occur periodically, suddenly, you’re earning 2,000 HawaiianMiles for 1,000 Maika’i points. That pencils out to a value of $27.20 for the miles at a typical purchase price of $40.
Depending on how you want to value HawaiianMiles, whether it be the widely-held belief that each mile is worth $0.013 or if you want to look at it in terms of the purchase price when you earn 2x HawaiianMiles with Foodland, you’re getting between $0.027 per point (how I look at it) to $0.04 per point. That makes it slightly less valuable than the poke, at least to me, but still an excellent deal overall. So when this promotion comes up, I jump for it.
Earn 2x HawaiianMiles with Foodland!
Now, the reason why I’m bringing up this topic is that last Saturday, Foodland started another promotion in which you can earn 2x Hawaiian miles with Foodland. I just didn’t have time to write a post about it until now. But that’s okay because the current double HawaiianMiles promotion runs through the end of the month (Friday). So, if you have 1,000 points in your Maika’i Rewards account, you can easily head over to your nearest Foodland and redeem them for 2,000 HawaiianMiles. I did this on Saturday at the Foodland Farms Lahaina, of all places.
As a friendly reminder, you do have to make a purchase to redeem your points. However, there is no minimum purchase to do so, so you could just waltz in and buy a $2 bottle of water to make your redemption.
Final Thoughts
The fact that you can earn 2x HawaiianMiles with Foodland takes on new meaning this year, as these miles will likely convert to Alaska Mileage Plan miles at some point in the future. And while you certainly can’t use 2,000 miles for anything in either program, they add up! I had roughly 80,000 HawaiianMiles pre-pandemic, but thanks to a roundtrip flight between Honolulu and Las Vegas (5,000 miles), a one-way flight to Hilo (100 miles), and these Foodland promotions, I’m now up around 92,000 miles! And in the combined program, I’ll have over 200,000.