Alaska Airlines Premium Credit Card: Incredibly Lucrative!

To Citi: this is how it’s done.

Would this be card make sense for someone based in DFW and flies AA 90% of the time?

For some, Alaska's refreshed ecosystem will be incredibly attractive.

As well as AA.

@ Luis -- You're kind of in the same boat as me (as someone who lives in MIA and flies American). I'll share a more detailed post with my plan, but I covered this a bit in my previous post, about the new Atmos Rewards program.

@Ben
I believe the SUB also includes the 25K companion award in addition to the 100K points, and it’s not only available on the account anniversary.

Thanks!

I don't fly AA too often, am based in NYC but have used the AA program to benefit me when flying OneWorld airlines globally. I'm wondering if switching is a good plan for me too!

I see Southwest got the memo. 100,000 bonus points if you spend $4000 in first five months with their credit card.

@ ML -- Good point, I should clarified that, thanks. Post updated!

Does anyone know if this card will earn 3x points back on rent through Bilt?

let me get this straight - any transaction outside the US will be in the x3 category? Is this capped?
As someone living in Europe, that could make this card extremely valuable for me...

Wow. 3,3x foreign transactions with BofA PH…something VPN can assist with?

Do Companion miles roll-over and are not (certificates) required to be used in a single transaction (i.e. use 9k miles on a transaction but the remaining 16k miles are voided)?

@ Peter -- Hah, I don't think a VPN would do the trick, as it's all based on how/where the merchant processes the purchase. I'm sure there's some potential creativity, though. The Global Companion Awards have to be used in one swoop.

@ Dror -- That's correct! I think perhaps the one potential concern here is to what extent Bank of America may try to shut down accounts where a vast majority of spend is abroad. I have no inside information there, but we've sometimes seen card issuers claim that cards aren't being used as intended, when a vast majority of purchases are abroad.

@ Thomas -- It should be the same as Alaska's other cards, for those purposes.

Brilliant news. Applying now…

Word of caution: if you pre-registered for the card apply through the email that was sent out this morning in order to get 5000 bonus points. I jumped the gun this morning and applied through the Alaska website so I'm not sure if I will qualify for the bonus points.

I've looked but I couldn't find what the terms are for the 3x points on foreign purchases. Is there an annual limit? Does it need to be combined with domestic spend?

Ben it sounds as if one has to book one’s own ticket with points vs cash. So if one doesn’t already have a Stash of Atmosphere points is the companion cert useful?

So I just applied about a hour ago and was approved. NOw in my email I see the offer from Alaska airlines for the new card with the 5000 bonus points on top of the 100,000. Do you think I have any recourse to get those 5000 points from the email? Only after I applied a hour ago... But was approved @ben

@ Saka -- No annual limit on spending abroad. However, in the past we've sometimes seen card issuers arbitrarily shut people down for spending too much abroad. But there's nothing official here regarding that...

@ Brandon Rabb -- Congrats on the approval! It can't hurt to send a secure message to Bank of America, but I wouldn't count on it working, unfortunately.

Getting continuous red circle which no progress while applying. Any insight of this? I tried saving the application once and it disappeared and I had to start over, same red circle. Don’t want to keep applying and possibly affecting credit adversely…

Ben - any idea about authorised users? I saw nothing specific in the T&Cs (but also not expecting major perks for them). TBH as a non-Alaskan flyer US expat, this card is still awesome, even valuing the perks at close to $0 (other than the companion vouchers, earning structure, and potential for OW status purely via spend). If they had added Priority Pass this would have been the perfect travel card post-CSR update.

So Hawaiian miles allow free pooling of points, but now with Atmos, it's only available if you have the premium card? That's not good.

I think it’s the offer when you pre registered.

Here’s mine

“To thank you for pre-registering for our new premium card last year, we’re offering you an additional 5,000 bonus points when you apply within 14 days and get approved. Also earn 100,000 bonus points and a 25,000 point Global Companion Award for a limited time after you spend $6,000 or more on purchases within the first 90 days of opening your account.”

Too bad Alaska stuck with B of A.

I didn't see anything about waived partner award booking fee in the list of benefits.

*The card offers an instant travel delay credit, so if you fly Alaska and experience a delay of more than two hours for any reason, or cancellation within 24 hours of departure, you’ll automatically receive an instant $50 voucher "

If united offered this, I could quit my job and just fly out of Newark every day

Can the 25k points for the companion be used in increments or is it a one time use even if the redemption is lower than 25K?

I will do that. I think it was a good idea for me to apply outside of the link since so many people are having issues with the new link.

Ben, any gut sense on how long this offer lasts? (45 days) Oct 1 or (60) Oct 15?

Hi Ben, this actually seems like a bad deal for my use case. I am BOS based and use my $99 companion fair for BOS-PDX at xmas which usually is a $800-$1100 ticket. with the premium card the $99 companion seems to go away and the 25k certificate seems like it would be useless as mileage ticket is 85k for that routing. Am I missing something as to how I would benefit from the new card which swaps the $99 for the the new global companion?

@ Brad -- Nope, you're not missing anything, as it's just a different card with a different value proposition. There's nothing preventing people from getting both cards, so I think you should keep your current card. If you can get value from the Global Companion Award, then maybe it makes sense to get the other card as well.

@ JR -- I wish I knew! I'd say it'll likely last for several weeks, but it's hard to say anything beyond that. Sorry.

Are there any restrictions on getting the welcome bonus for this new card if say you got a welcome bonus for the AS signature card a few months ago? I did get the offer through email since I had signed up last year and did not see any restrictive wording.

Expats in finance, tech, etc. are going to absolutely print with this card

@Ben:

1, What’s the expiration policy for the 100k (and 25k) certificates? In theory this sounds great as I transferred 180k AmEx points to Hawaiian, then Alaska, before transfers were shut off. But curious how long I would have to use certificates I earn and whether the timing of earning affects expiration or not (sometime you want to stay under a threshold in that case to give yourself more time to redeem).

2. Have you considered doing a post ranking the best “annual spend bonuses” on different cards? There’s quite a lot of these now with all the premium cards. Eg I like the free nights you earn with spend on Hilton Aspire and Bonvoy Brilliant; platinum status on Bilt also has real value if you’re flexible. But $75k on AmEx Platinum just for free guests seems like such a waste. Would be super useful to get your insights on how to rank the value of different offers and when it’s worth sacrificing spend that could otherwise be on a 2X card like Venture Capital One or Citi Double Cash.

That is hilarious!

Begging Alaska for a business card with shipping and adspend multiplier. I'll move everything over!

Lucky - Do you know how the points sharing benefit works? I already am approved for the Summit card. Can I only share my miles with family members, or can they share them with me (even though they dont have the Summit card)? I have way more miles than my family, and I'd love to be able to transfer my wife's points to me, and the little balances on my kid's accounts too.

@ Daniel -- This allows you transfer points back and forth, so yes, you could do exactly what you're describing. It might take a second for the feature to be fully live, but I'll make a post about how it works soon. Stay tuned!

Eh, there are trade-offs. BofA is generally terrible, but their credit lines are usually more than generous.

No Priority Pass or Global Entry credit… hard to justify 395$ AF

Can anyone confirm whether the 25K/100K companion certs are valid for award travel on partner airlines, or is it just for Alaska? Reading the credit card offer terms, I don't see any airline restrictions...

Received the targeted RSVP offer via email as an MVP Gold. Applied, instant decline. No recent BoA card applications although I am 5/24 (does this matter).

Tried calling in and was told despite being a BoA Preffered Rewards client that I had to wait for the snail mail letter before they could request any type of manual review.

There is according to the website

FYI to anyone who's applied: I called BofA to request my card to be rush shipped (standard shipping was 1-3 days), and they said they will send it out to be delivered in 1-3 days (though the rep said it should be delivered tomorrow). Also waived the $15 rush fee.

YMMV with the service rep though, first rep didn't understand what I was asking for and sent me to the mobile app to do the rush, and I had to call back when that didn't work.

I'm flying to Asia a week from Thursday so I obviously do not want to chance the card not arriving on time. 🙂

No Priority Pass and foreign exchange? Such a bumper. This card is designed for US based card holders because if B of A sees inadequate transactions in US and excessive overseas transactions all year long, it will be a huge red flag. Maybe a
combination of primary card holder lives overseas and AU in US with small credit limit will lessen the suspicion.

Yes it can be used on partner airlines. From the global companion award FAQ:

"Where can I use my Global Companion Award?
Global Companion Awards can be applied to any award booking available on AlaskaAir.com, including flights on Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, and oneworld® global partners."

From the Global Companion Award FAQ:

"What happens if the companion ticket costs less than the Global Companion Award?
If the companion's award fare is less than the Global Companion Award value (either 25,000 points or 100,000 points), the unused value is forfeited."

@Ben

I know this is a non-sequitur, but expertflyer is completely down for me this morning. I cannot search availability or sign in on either laptop or mobile phone, every time I sign in the page just refreshes back to the home screen.

Are you / are other readers having the same issue?

My email from this morning says the offer is good for anyone who applies in the next 14 days.

I feel like I'm missing something here. What is so great about, what is essentially, a 25k point coupon? There's much less flexibility than using a $99 companion fare, significantly more variable pricing than cash fares, and the benefit of multiple segments/multi city itineraries is completely gone (the award cost will simply increase accordingly).

The other benefits seem fine, but this new concept of a companion fare is lacking unless someone can point out the benefit I'm failing to see.

Can you cover more details on global companion upgrade for 25k? Is it just replacing 25k miles but global means can be applied toward all partners?
Also given the existence of Barclays Hawaiian card, if I want to get the Barclays cards before, how should I do it?

Think of it this way: you book two award flights. You get 25,000 points off the total amount.

@ Ken -- I'll have a separate post about it, but it's really quite straightforward. You can just get 25K points off an award on Alaska, Hawaiian, or any partner. The total cost for one passenger just has to be at least 25K points, and there needs to be award availability for two people.

If you want to get a Hawaiian Card, you could still apply for that now, along with the Atmos Rewards Card. There's nothing preventing you from getting both for the time being.

Huh?! Using an Alaska card to get Bilt points?! How does that work! I’m interested!!

@ NotMyName -- It's just a different kind of a perk than the companion ticket offered on other Alaska cards. One isn't necessarily better than the other, it just all depends on your redemption and spending patterns.

Just realized the typo in my first post, standard shipping is 7-10 days.

Can you get the bonus for this if you have the Alaska signature card? Not sure what it’s called now with these changes.

@ Ben’s voodoo doll -- I don't see anything that would prevent eligibility in that situation.

I assume the biggest limitation with partner airlines is that they need to actually have 2+ award seats available to AS.

A very nice perk AS could offer on its own metal is to open an extra award seat at the same rate when you're redeeming your 100k cert, but I don't see anything that suggests they'll do this.

Thnak you Matt. i did not see that under the terms,

@ Sam -- Looking into it, thanks! I've barely looked at anything not involving Atmos Rewards since around 4AM, so... :p

@ globetrotter -- Sorry, not following the "foreign exchange" part following "no Priority Pass?" In case there's any confusion, the card doesn't have foreign transaction fees.

To me, this benefit gives me a short-hop round trip in first class and is worth about $300+.

This card is so complicated. So many words needed to describe all the benefits.

https://www.alaskaair.com/atmosrewards/content/credit-cards/faq/global-companion-award the examples at the bottom (SFO-NRT for 120k in J ???) seem to imply a severe devaluation coming soon....

@ Jeff -- That's roundtrip pricing.

This exists for 2x on shipping. Been around awhile and appears to have been re branded today.

I called in and they helped me immediately. Mine was actually a fraud check. I called this line 877-261-3664
I'm also way over 5/24, although I don't believe BoA uses that specific math regardless.

@ david -- So complicated, or just so rewarding? If you want a card that isn't complicated, check out the recent launch of the premium JetBlue card. It's not complicated because there isn't much to it...

@ 5Millionmiles -- Well, at a minimum you should earn 100K points with the welcome bonus, right? 🙂

I got "unable to approve" via the special link...but I got "We're reviewing it" when I went via the website (they might bother me for tax forms).

...but this same mess happened when BofA rolled out the Amtrak cards, and I wound up with two of those in hand when the dust settled because they ran all of the rejected accounts through reconsideration.

did you get approval after submitting fraud check? I had same issue and after call they said it takes 7 business days for a decision...

Foreign transaction fees?

@ Christian -- There aren't any.

Does this card have any foreign transaction fees?

I swore off of BofA credit cards years ago because of their website.

- If you paid off your card too often, they wanted you to call (like maybe more than twice a month or something?)
- There was no option to pay the current full balance. You had to remember what the number was from several pages back and type it in again. They really hated you paying off your card.
- There was no option to automatically pay your full balance (only minimum due, or a set amount). If you typed in something like $10,000, it would literally take $10k from your account and you'd have a negative credit card balance.
- The payment date defaulted to the end of the billing period instead of today. If I'm trying to make a payment, uhh I kinda want it to be today.

Anyone know if they fixed any of this nonsense? If so, I might consider. I really hate BofA with a passion though.

@ Mike -- It doesn't.

Brandon,

I think we boo booed by not applying through the link in the invite email. I did the exact same thing and now kicking myself. Doubt we will receive the bonus 500 points. The link showed 105,000 point offer.

Would I be able to use the Alaska lounge passes at AA Admirals Club lounge (such as OrangeCounty/John Wayne) if I was flying Alaska, American or Hawaiian air?

The payment date defaults to the current date.

Otherwise I agree that the BofA website is terrible compared to other credit card websites.

A big, "meh" for me.

I have no need for a companion award.

I've got lounge access with other cards.

At sign up, $395 for 100k "points" (miles) is a good, but not great value.

$395 after the first year with $0 credit on purchases? Cap 1 Ven-X card PAYS ME at least $5 each year for the card.

Looks like a pass for my situation.

I'm in agreement with you, the cert certainly doesn't justify the annual fee, but I'm still considering it for the 105k points. I'd take 10k points over the cert any day of the week

Being an expat working abroad I'm not super excited.

It's 1 incremental point per dollar over spending on my venture x. I spend about 3k per month on my CC so I'd get 36k more points that can only be redeemed on Alaska. It makes more sense to use that spend for SUBs on other cards

Living abroad the lounge passes are basically worthless. The companion cert will be useless if you live somewhere without a oneworld airline or are single like the majority of digital nomads I know.

Even though I'm considering the card for the SUB I don't agree with your analysis. I had high hopes for this card but imo it's meh. I wouldn't keep it after the first year.

I think it depends, those are redundant benefits for many playing the miles and points game. That being said I don't think the card has broad appeal. Seems like the audience for this card is travel bloggers and maybe for people seeking Alaska status every year.

As someone who lives abroad the 3x isn't enough to justify the AF. The other benefits won't be too useful. The sub isn't bad and I'm low on Alaska miles so I'm considering as a one and done

I had the same issue yesterday but it's back now.

We don't know the real value of the points. 25k companion ticket can take you from where to where for example? Is it going to be like Delta and United that cost a couple of hundred thousand points from the US to Asia one way.....

The terms stipulate that the Alaska Lounge benefit is "valid only at Alaska Lounges," and that “Partner lounges are not included.”

They finally added a setup for scheduled and reoccurring payments, and you can set it up to pay your statement balance automatically. I agree, the website feels very old school.

Thanks, Ben - just used your link to apply for the Atmos Summit Infinite Visa card - instant approval!

As well as AA.

@ Luis -- You're kind of in the same boat as me (as someone who lives in MIA and flies American). I'll share a more detailed post with my plan, but I covered this a bit in my previous post, about the new Atmos Rewards program.

@ ML -- Good point, I should clarified that, thanks. Post updated!

@ Thomas -- It should be the same as Alaska's other cards, for those purposes.

@ Dror -- That's correct! I think perhaps the one potential concern here is to what extent Bank of America may try to shut down accounts where a vast majority of spend is abroad. I have no inside information there, but we've sometimes seen card issuers claim that cards aren't being used as intended, when a vast majority of purchases are abroad.

@ Peter -- Hah, I don't think a VPN would do the trick, as it's all based on how/where the merchant processes the purchase. I'm sure there's some potential creativity, though. The Global Companion Awards have to be used in one swoop.

@ Saka -- No annual limit on spending abroad. However, in the past we've sometimes seen card issuers arbitrarily shut people down for spending too much abroad. But there's nothing official here regarding that...

@ Brandon Rabb -- Congrats on the approval! It can't hurt to send a secure message to Bank of America, but I wouldn't count on it working, unfortunately.

I think it’s the offer when you pre registered.

Here’s mine

“To thank you for pre-registering for our new premium card last year, we’re offering you an additional 5,000 bonus points when you apply within 14 days and get approved. Also earn 100,000 bonus points and a 25,000 point Global Companion Award for a limited time after you spend $6,000 or more on purchases within the first 90 days of opening your account.”