I've written in the past about the case to be made for American AAdvantage loyalists switching their business to Alaska Atmos Rewards, especially in light of changes that we saw to the Atmos Rewards program in 2025. As I explained at the time, this is a strategy I was considering, but not one I followed through on in 2025, since I was already most of the way to earning status with American, so a mid-year switch didn't make sense.
Makes complete sense. This sort of arbitrage is becoming more and more rare these days, but I have to imagine AA will shut it down in the coming years. Either less awards to partners like UA/DL have done or something else. Great for the time being though
Alaska is quietly chipping away at the once-superior Atmos benefits. For example, my favorite US to Caribbean route used to cost a minimum of 7,500 Atmos points for the 1,000 miles until a month or so ago, and now it is never less than 12,500.
But I switched to Alaska a year ago after 2 million butt-in-the-seat American miles (and lifetime AA Platinum) for the reasons that Ben stated.
Any update on when the new ways of earning choices will go live other than “later in 2026”?
Not in a hurry. For most of us, this will be another way of chipping away at our benefits. Want premium cabin bonuses AND credit for actual miles flown? Won't get both. Want to keep the 500 mile minimum for that 100 mile flight? Not happening either.
You just articulated my exact strategy for 2026 ... great minds ... :).
Major benefit of Atmos is that (at least for now) Alaska gives status points (one per mile flown) on award flights booked using its own miles. (American don't do that. Just sayin... *stink eye*)
Sorry, trying to work my head around your math - you said you'll earn Platinum after the 10k bonus + 30k from $60k spend + flying 14k miles, but that adds up to 54k not 80k for Platinum? I guess that's on top of your current status points and not starting from scratch?
I do see the logic, at least unless American decides to give status points for award tickets on their own metal like UA and DL (or AS on any OneWorld carrier).
Also feel like this makes it an easy call for you to downgrade Strata Elite for the time being since you probably don't need more AA miles at the moment and the Admirals Club passes are obviously redundant if you have and value unlimited access from the AA lounge card.
Your plan works as long as AA keeps releasing saver award Y and F award availability to partners. This can change any time without notice.
They can pull a UA where J saver awards are pretty much only available for their own elite or credit card holders.
Or they can behave like CX where it only releases a subset of Y awards to its OneWorld partners and PY/J/F are unicorns particularly on long haul.
As a current Alaska Atmos Titanium member, I want to point out a minor error in the article - it takes 135,000 status points to attain the Titanium tier, and not 125K.