[Sticky] How To Redeem Alaska Atmos Rewards Points For Best Value

Is anyone seeing the 12.50 partner fee being waved? I've called 3x in the last week, and alaska keeps telling me to call Bank of america, because it's them who refund the fee...doesn't sound right.

60k atmos points for Easter Island with a stopover in Santiago on latam business class was an amazing sweet spot we used. I’m sad to see it go with the latam partnership ending.

Since the author simply copied articles from previous years with minimal changes, I will have to point out many new and old pitfalls that are missing:
- Cathay premium cabins are simply not available, period, in any market at any time.
- Japan Airlines first class is simply never available, period.
- Fuel surcharge is also featured on Royal Air Maroc, which the article does not mention.
- all intra-Asia awards within 3 days of departure are blocked
- all Hainan awards are blocked
- The award chart says "starting at" so any flight that include a connection usually price higher than the chart, rendering most of the distance bands/stopovers useless. This is most prevalent in Japan Airlines redemptions, as some routes that should be priced at 75k end up being 85k or 95k. Some awards on Condor should be 75k but will end up being 110k.
- Tokyo to/from Taipei/Shanghai/Beijing should cost 7.5k/15k, but Alaska randomly changed it to being 15k/32.5k for no reason, or warning, or explanation. This devaluation shows they will alter the chart at whim.
- Oman Air, despite it being said as an "earn partner" for a year, has no actual earning chart.
- within Middle East, Qatar markets its business seats as First Class, but the Atmos system will price it as business class. (an actual upside)
- stopovers cannot exceed 14 days
- mix partner is not allowed, so no AA+QF, but AS can be mixed with 1 other partner, but no 2 partner can be mixed into any itinerary, severely limiting usefulness.
- article claims you may get complicated trips figured out by phone, it has not been the case for a few years. All agents are explicitly instructed to tell you if a trip cannot be pieced out on the website, it simply does not exist. Agents are powerless. Do not call.

Just booked JFK-EZE for three in business class for 50K points each. So psyched about it.

anyone who is actually knowledgeable about the AS rules would know that AA + AY can indeed be combined, so for example "no 2 partner can be mixed into any itinerary" is a false statement

While I see where you're coming from about practical versus aspirational redemptions, given your laser focus on premium travel and redemptions, that's what counts the most. A first class trip to Bali gets the blood revving while a AVL-MKE redemption does not.

Separately, I love the template you use for breaking down the program. Please keep using it for all programs in the future. What's especially helpful is that, for example, you list hold policies. Sure, more experienced readers already know that no such animal exists but not everyone is as familiar with every program so your setup makes it easy to understand.

It should show on the payment page that it is waived if you are paying the taxes and fees with your Summit card. It showed as that for my award booking and on the confirmation receipt. However, I saw the charge appear separately on my BOA online account and had to contact AS to get it removed (which they did).

Pretty much true, particularly about the ridiculous lack of premium cabin award space. Why list something as a sweet spot when it's never available?

On the Condor 110K business class awards, in my experience those are with a connection. I'm not sure why but adding on to a JFK-FRA flight can literally double the price, but only sometimes.

Ben,

You should also talk about the issues with phantom availability people are seeing, especially the first day of availability (330 days out). Super prevalent with Condor through my experience with a recent booking. Would error out on the payment page and calling in was not helpful. Award pricing would change from saver to non-saver at midnight. Lots of discussion on Flyertalk about this issue.

Same with lots of frustration on Flyertalk with their ongoing tech issues and clunky rollout of Atmos regarding the earning rates around their new earning choices (distance, revenue and segment). AS said to wait until October for clarification, but from what has been shared it sure seems to be a devaluation around distance earning as there is now no class of service bonus for elites.

Lots to be excited about for sure with the new card, but definitely some criticism to be had for sure.

anyone who has actually tried it knows the combined itinerary costs more than individual flights combined. So thank you for your insightful addition, yes they can be combined in extremely specific scenarios on specific carriers, and we are literally worse off because of it.

@beyounged

Thank you for injecting some sanity into this Atmos is the next best thing to walnut/cranberry bread.
With the lack of availability of premium cabins on partners and the blocking of seats on partners <=72 hours when some seats are released, I still don't see the value of this program. Perhaps it's ideal for those who live in the NW, but meh...

Before the last evaluation, Alaska was actually a very decent program. But now, specially, in light of losing LATAM, it has very limited uses.

JFK-LHR-HEL booked as a combined itinerary: 55k

JFK-LHR // LHR-HEL booked separately as two individual flights: 60k

55 < 60

why do you keep getting things wrong?

Is that round-trip per person? What carrier?

Can you explain to me how is it a devaluation if all classes earn the same per mile flown? No one is getting less than, whether status or not.

Its worthwhile noting that its not possible to book lap infant awards with partner airlines and a full award is needed... which is frustrating

One way and likely on latam, but alaska os losing access to latam in a month or so.

“- within Middle East, Qatar markets its business seats as First Class, but the Atmos system will price it as business class. (an actual upside)”

I recently booked DOH-DXB and although it does price as business class, it still distinguishes it from actual business class and does not allow a connecting itinerary. So it is not possible to book LCA-DOH-DXB as one, for example; you’d have to book two separate awards even if together the two sectors in the same class would cost half the miles price of two separate tickets. And I second the last point. When I tried talking to Alaska, I got a very blunt “if it’s not available online you can’t book it”. When I pushed I got some uneducated response as to why it’s not possible.

@ digital_notmad
Oh you are actually correct. I apologize for the misinformation. This single combination out of all millions of 2+ partner airline combinations can be booked on AS.
Thank you for defending AS to the very last and sad attempt while ignoring all glaring problems it has. People like you are the reason why we can never have proper improvements in the space due to "positive feedback". We were promised mixed partner awards 11 months ago. We were promised WY earning a year ago. Yet out of the dozen problems I pointed out, you chose a 0.1% scenario on one of the points that I have missed, while ignoring all other issues. If you would enlighten me as to why all CX J/JL F have disappeared for years yet still has a photo featured in this article, that would be very nice. Thank you.

oh is it annoying when someone leverages edge-case technicalities to claim that the overall thrust of your write-up is outdated and wrong? sorry for that, seems like a dick move

Wow my bad for always wondering if we have an AS version of Tim Dunn. If an entire airline cannot be redeemed like HU, or an entire airline cannot be earned like WY, or widely advertised JL F is not even possible to book, one may think it is not a one-off margin case. But you of course would defend AS and every single "technical problem" until Atmos has full control of your brain stem. Still waiting for the enlightenment on why CX J is not available at all.

If that's true, it's not even worth my time to contact them to waive it. They need to fix that.

Currently with AS you get a class of service bonus for flying in higher fare classes. Under the new program, if you choose distance based, you earn the same rate regardless of the class of service (economy, business, first). The only class of service bonus you would get is in the revenue option, where it is factored into the higher fare you pay.

Wrong. Flew premium economy to Germany on Condor for 90k points RT. Great deal. Flying to Tokyo on JAL in the spring for about the same. If West Coast based as we are many useful point to point flights just for points as well. If you live in PDX, SEA, SFO or even SAN this is a great program.

You forgot to mention their incredibly unfair lap infant policy for partner awards.