We recently saw the launch of Atmos Rewards, the new combined loyalty program of Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines. The program is really well thought out, in my opinion, with some unique features you won’t find with many other programs.
Continue reading: Atmos Rewards Points Earning On Premium Partner Tickets Improving
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
@ Speedscu -- Well for most partner airlines there's not even an option to earn based on spending rather than based on distance, at least for the foreseeable future. And if anything, I'd say this moves the math more in favor of distance based earning, no?
125% on Business Class was normal for many AS partners in the past - QF, SQ, and JL come to mind.
Question - do the 25%-150% bonus points you would earn as an Atmos status member count as status points as well? Or are they just purely bonus miles.
With AA you'll still get an additional 40%-120% miles AND LP on account of status, although that's off of the 100% base miles (not the 250% comprised of 100% base + 150% bonus). So just curious how it works with Atmos.
Of course, while booking with partners may usually be ideal, it's still nice that the AA program awards you the 250% for J even if you book with a third party. So you could, if the price was right, book through Chase Travel or whatever (you could even redeem points with Points Boost!), and still get the 250% from AA.
I suspect that the reason for the delay in implementing the new earning rates is for Alaska to come out with yet another devaluation (despite solemn promises not to do so as an absolute condition of their merger) to lower any value that members might gain from the changes.
I will lose my status next year because the partner business earning is bad and now they want to improve in one year? A very bad move to keep premium customers loyal if they are inconsistent like this ...
About time -- the new (current) partner business class earn rates a ridiculous-- a huge disincentive to stay with the program if that's a significant part of your annual status qualification. Implement it now -- or at a minimum on 1/1/26. Otherwise, they're disrespecting their best client base and we'll migrate to AA.
https://www.alaskaair.com/atmosrewards/content/faq/2026-updates
What flights will be eligible for choice based earn?
Choice based accrual applies to all Alaska, Hawaiian, codeshare and partner tickets booked via AlaskaAir.com and HawaiianAir.com. Partner flights booked direct with partners will continue to earn a percentage of flown miles if either the distance or ticket price earning method is chosen, or will earn 500 points per segment if the segment earning method is chosen.
However...
https://www.alaskaair.com/atmosrewards/content/benefits/2026-updates
By distance traveled
1 mile flown = 1 point earned
Earn based on how far you go — the more miles you fly, the more points you rack up. (That's perfect for transcontinental or long-haul international flights.) You'll earn status points for award travel based on distance, too. Please note: If you select this earn choice, you’ll no longer earn class of service bonuses or minimum miles.
So maybe they're talking about Alaska Class of Service bonuses, like when booking in J earning 200%. So booking in J won't earn 200% anymore, but partners will guessing by that language.
Still confusing I guess
I've been MVP Gold (now ATMOS Gold) since AS took over VX. This year I qualified for MVP Gold 75K (now ATMOS Platinum) and have this status level through 2026. The changes can't come soon enough for me -- it's very frustrating when I have to book through partner airlines. I'm certainly not the only one who hopes that "later in 2026" doesn't mean December 2026.
Getting those partner flights credit to your account has, in my experience, been a nightmare. I've had it happen multiple times where credits don't post and then I used the Alaska website to manually add...waited 6+ weeks and the credits still don't post. Going forward, I only use my American account. Truly disappointing.
I have a multi-stop itinerary that I booked on aa.com for travel in business class on OW carriers in early September. The trip starts in Auckland and ends in Madrid before heading back to Auckland. Does anyone know when these 2026 program changes will go into effect, as it impacts which frequent flyer program I will credit these flights?
Thanks for this. I'm still processing (need more coffee) but to clarify - the Atmos webpage says "Eligible American Airlines-marketed flights booked through American" get 5 points per $. But does that mean that AA flights not booked through AA but credited to AS get the partner earn chart? (Understand that you have to select fare paid to get the partner earn chart.)
Also has interesting implications for earning points through award travel as you'd then go to 1 status point per 20 points redeemed?
And if you have Atmos status do you get further bonus points on top of the partner reward chart? And are those bonus points = status points as well?
@ Peter_ -- As I said in another post, there are definitely some Bilt Cash comparisons to be made here in terms of complexity. :p
Regarding American flights, you're talking about American flights booked through airlines other than American, Alaska, or Hawaiian? Unless they're codeshare flights through another airline, the ticket would still likely credit based on price, due to the fare data that Atmos Rewards would have access to.
Indeed, the different award flight status points earning thing is interesting as well. The better system depends on the distances you usually fly, and if you consistently redeem at the saver level or not.
Atmos Rewards elite bonuses are on top of the earnings rates shown, though elite bonuses only count toward redeemable points, and not status points (unlike AAdvantage, for example).
LOL - the Bilt program certainly came to mind!
Yeah, thanks. I'm just reading from here - https://www.alaskaair.com/content/earn-points/flights/2027
It says "Eligible American Airlines-marketed flights booked through American; Ticket numbers beginning with 001" get the 5 points per $1. And then "Eligible partner flights booked elsewhere; Ticket numbers beginning with anything other than 027 or 001" get the partner chart.
So right, I guess I'm thinking of a circumstance where you buy a flight on AA metal through BA or whomever TATL and you credit it to Alaska. JFK-LHR comes to mind. Right now it's all fare based (JV shares fare data) but some might do better crediting an AA flight booked through BA to Alaska. Would have to run the math - but 250% on distance would be something like ~17.5k points and status points r/t? That may or may not be better than crediting to AA depending on fare price and any status with AA - basically gets you almost to Atmos Silver (20k) on one trip?
All that may change if Alaska gets into the TATL JV of course, but that's where I'm going with this in my head.
Here's another potential loophole - when the FAQ is talking about bundled vacation packages including from Costco it says: "It depends on how you earn: If you earn by distance traveled or segments flown, that stays the same — actual miles flown, or 500 points per eligible segment. If you earn by price paid, vacation packages that don't disclose the actual fares will earn based on distance traveled instead."
I think the FAQ also summarized it nicely: "If you’re earning by price paid and book an eligible partner flight with a travel agency, you’ll earn 5 points per $1 spent, excluding taxes and fees as long as your ticket number begins with 027, or 001. If your ticket begins with any other three digit number, you’ll earn based on our partner earn chart."
Bottom line is if Alaska can see the price paid and it's issued under 001/027, you get 5 points per $1, otherwise the chart applies.
So if one hypothetically wanted to earn OWE, you'd just have to buy international business class tickets that meet the above requirements (any fare code would work I presume) and then travel 32,000 miles to get 80k status points and reach Atmos Platinum/OWE. Or, if you enroll with the Global Local community and get an extra 10% status bonus, 30,770 miles.
Actually I think the bottom line is more nuanced?
If it's a ticket that begins with 001/027, if AS can see the price you get 5 points per $1, but if not you earn based on distance traveled, not the partner award chart (so presumably this covers bulk/consolidator/wholesale fares that are issued under 001/027).
If the ticket begins with anything other than 001/027, you get the partner chart.
More coffee (or tea, or both) is always a good idea. I was under the impression that you cannot earn any points for award travel (but you can earn status qualifying, regardless of whether its AS metal or a partner, which is uniquely generous of this program compared to nearly all others.) Also, did someone mention BILT?! (Bah...)
This is good to know. Obviously, most airlines want you to spend cash on their metal. That said, for Atmos Rewards, my focus is to keep earning status points based on distance traveled while redeeming Alaska points on F/J partner awards (AA, JX, etc.); Alaska is uniquely generous with that, regardless of these other changes. Even when other airlines allow you to earn status qualifying points on award redemptions, it's usually only for their metal, not partners. (Like, DL redemptions earn MQDs on DL metal, not AF, KL, VN, etc.)
The real question is whether cash-paid partner flights should be credited to AS or AA under these circumstances. If selecting 'distance,' ideally we're traveling long-distance and not spending much on those tickets. However, if you're like Ben, spending a small fortune to review a partner seat in F/J, spend-based is probably best (and I recall he's transitioned to AS-focus, over AA, even while based at MIA!) Or, if you're a road-warrior going from SEA-PDX in Economy multiple times per week, then 500 a pop is maybe best. Will be interesting to see how this goes for everyone.
This makes my head hurt. Its complex for a reason. I will spare myself and just avoid Atmos.
So am I right with the following presumptions?
If I choose the "fare/revenue" point track, I will earn 5 points (status points as well) on every $1 spent on Alaska/American fares, regardless of class of service. Then I presume I will additional points based on the class of service.
If I flew on their partner airlines (excluding American), I will still earn status points based on the actual distance flown, as well as class of service, since Alaska has no access to the actual fares paid.
For mileage ticket, I will just earn 1 status points for every 20 points I paid for the actual ticket.
Am I right?
But then this is further misleading because when you look at the earnings charts, it states that for partner airlines booked elsewhere (not through Alaska/Hawaiian etc), if you select to earn by fare paid, you still end up earning by distance flown with the added enhanced bonus. So the way I’m reading this is that if you go for earning by fare paid, you get 5 status points/$1 on American and Alaska/Hawaiian, and for all other partners with tickets starting with anything other than 027 and 001 you earn “points and status points based on a percentage of the actual distance traveled, if price paid earn is selected.” And that percentage is the new enhanced percentage. Am I missing something? And then of course you have communities bonuses etc etc. A bit of a “best of both worlds” in some respects?
This would be huge if it turns out to be true. But I guess we won't know for sure until January.
Also, am I right in thinking that if you use the points calculator on the Atmos Rewards website which uses your spend to date to calculate the best option for you, it uses the current earning rates/bpnuses for partner flights booked elsewhere and not the new enhanced ones? Otherwise something isn’t right. Most of my travel is on partner airlines booked elsewhere and it’s given me more or less the same figure I earned so far. I would expect this to be near double!
Upgraded Points created a 2-part table that made it much easier to understand (I do love a good table). Since I'll be choosing distance traveled, it'll be straightforward for me, and makes the most sense with my purchasing patterns (pretty much all economy with the occasional domestic first ticket).
https://upgradedpoints.com/news/atmos-rewards-new-earn-rates-for-partner-flights/
They just copied and pasted it from the Atmos website. But I think this is the bottom line: "If you’re earning by price paid and book an eligible partner flight with a travel agency, you’ll earn 5 points per $1 spent, excluding taxes and fees as long as your ticket number begins with 027, or 001. If your ticket begins with any other three digit number, you’ll earn based on our partner earn chart."
Does this mean that American flights booked through Alaska, Hawaiian, or American now earn 5x$1 plus status? Because that could drastically improve earnings of AA metal booked via AA.
Man doesn't each major points blog say at one contradicting thing about this change? I'll see if AI can explain it better?
AI ain't gonna help in the short term as there isn't enougn information other than what Alaska Airlines has posted and when more blogs point out "discrepancies", "assessments based on incorrect observations", AI will be even worse.
Haven't you already learned that the "free" AI chatbots are models that are a little outdated and travel reviews, hotel reviews. I have had horrible experiences with hotels because of of outdated information on them.
I think the other part of the equation of all this is the price AS charges for booking partner flights through them. FT has a number of examples over the past few months of AS booked partner flights as way more exorbitantly priced then booking through the partner airline directly.
If you're using other people's money, then sure, book through AS, but for a lot of people the price difference can be multiple times more to book through AS, so when you book through the partner site, your SP earn is much lower since you're only earning 250% of the distance flown.
If I pay $5000 for an Int'l F ticket on AS, I'd earn 25,000SP. Booked on the partner site, I'd earn 250% of the distance flown. So the break even would be 10,000 miles flown regardless of price. However, lots of examples of those flights booked through the partner costing a lot less, so you forgo a chunk of SP.
I don't understand why there's no class of service bonus with the miles flown option. Clearly they make more money if you buy a higher class service (usually 3+ times as much), so why wouldn't you get rewarded for that?
I flew first class RT on Alaska from SAN to DEN a few weeks ago. I opted to have the miles awarded to my American AAdvantage account thinking that it would be about the same for either airline. Wrong!! American awarded me a paltry ~400 AAdvantage miles for this flight when Alaska would have awarded me ~2,500 Atmos points! I am now in the process of having the AA miles awarded back to my Alaska Atmos account. A big hassle and a lesson learned about miles awarded to partner airlines. No thanks!
This entire post is wrong. The class of service bonus still applies to flights booked on partner airlines on distance-based earning as long as you don't book on Alaska's website.
@Simon - The post looks correct to me.
https://www.alaskaair.com/content/earn-points/flights/2027
In order to earn 250% for partner business class, you have to opt for "price paid" earning on Alaskan/Hawaiian/American.