And how many of those 11 mainland USA connections actually have sensible connection schedules for people flying from the states back to Australia?

Being able to fly from many of those destinations and not taking a stopover would be a huge benefit (two 6--10 hour flights beats a 13-hour flight and a 1-hour flight to e.g. San Francisco) otherwise for me, there's no real gain over transiting in either Auckland or LAX for my Velocity points.

I agree: that's the rub. Some of the connections are fairly long, although I can think of worse places to spend a few hours of connection time than Honolulu.

The recliner seat is a bit of a deal-breaker if I'm going to be travelling for Business. I can't say it's at all tempting to replace either of Qantas or Virgin with Hawaiian... or in fact Delta / United.

The Hawaian cattle truck is now on the Brissie route!! Hawain ex Sydney has the A330 a lot better. Often do the route to HNL but often the opt for Alaskan for journeys on ward or if NY AA.

"But if you have the flexibility, an aversion to extra connections, a dislike of LAX and an interest in stopping over in Hawaii, it's definitely something I'd consider."

Those are a lot of 'caveats' and conditions. I've got flexibility, dislike of LAX and a break in Hawaii would be nice but there would still be connections either way, at Hawaii or LAX, and the ones at LAX are probably a lot more frequent. Sorry but I would rather go straight to the US, maybe even with United to San Francisco instead of LAX with Qantas, and make my way from there instead of putting up with the inferior 'regional business class' seats and a schedule which might not match up as cleanly as I would like.

You're absolutely right that they're caveats, and I don't disagree with much of your assessment. But it's certainly an interesting option into the trans-Pacific mix.

I can't see Brisbane in their website booking engine so we don't yet know the business class fare.  If it is a fair bit cheaper I would put up with the recliner and cheerfully enjoy a one stop to Vegas (connection times permitting).

It's a good idea and one that may be considered by many! Virgin Australia's Velocity will give you 1 whole point per mile when flying Economy with Hawaiian Airlines no matter how cheap the airfares. Better than half a point on its own flights! However they award first class guests with a stingy 1.5 points so that is something to look out for when booking with Haiwaiian.

I reckon the big plus is the quick stopover then a direct flight to the Big Apple. That will be good for a lot of business travellers. An area where Virgin need to work at is to keep all their flights in one terminal. Connecting from a Delta Domestic flight to a Virgin for ride home is a pain.

But connecting from a Virgin America domestic flight for a ride home is fantastic -- so book Delta for outbound connections (VA arrives into LAX T5, and you get lounges if you're a Gold of Platinum member of velocity), and book Virgin America for inbound connections -- arrive in T3, you don't need to leave the terminal for VA's T3 departure.

As for a "stingy" 1.5 points, remember that their "First" class is basically equivalent to Virgin Australia's Premium Economy product, which is worth 1.25 points... 1.5 points sounds pretty good now!

Definitely a routing that I'd look at for a holiday, but I value the long overnight flight out of LAX straight into Sydney far too much when travelling for business, along with the other things mentioned. There's also a big concern in my mind over the lack of flexibility. I will generally book connections onto QF12, using the three later QF flights and AA's pile of flights into LAX as my backup plan. HA generally has only one or to daily flights from mainland cities so if you miss you miss your flight, you're stuffed.

Still an intriguing idea though...

Yes, the redundancy of larger players is a useful thing if you're time-pressed.

I, too, am intrigued -- if they were to sort out the timings for a through connection, they'd really have something going there...

I wonder... would booking a Hawaiian flight through VA help you take advantage of Delta connections to HNL?