The Atmos Rewards Summit Card is an incredible premium airline credit card. The card has an excellent welcome bonus, and offers perks that should prove worthwhile for those who fly Alaska or Hawaiian (or even American) with any frequency.
It’s one of the most well-designed cards we’ve seen in a long time, in terms of the incentives to pick up the card, keep the card, and spend on the card. If you’re eligible and haven’t yet applied, I highly recommend doing so.
Love Alaska and the Atmos card was my “go to” for foreign travel….UNTIL I realized my (no foreign transaction fee) Bilt Palladium was getting me 3X on all foreign travel spend with points boosted by Bilt cash…..AND Bilt points are transferable to Alaska. I realize I missed out on some status points, but the flexibility of transferable currency made up for that, IMO.
I still used the Atmos card, but not for everything.
@ Craig -- The Bilt Palladium Card is excellent, no doubt. While every person's spend profile will differ, personally I try to use my Bilt Palladium (and the points accelerator) for non-bonused spending in the United States, since that earns me the most total points.
I'd rather earn 3x Bilt points on a purchase that would otherwise earn 2x transferable points, rather than a purchase that would otherwise earn 3x Atmos Rewards points. But that's just me. 🙂
And premium drinks in the Alaska lounge, only with this card. I enjoyed some Clase Azul yesterday at PDX, otherwise would have been $15.
Very good. Did you have to ask for that or was it automatic once you presented your card for "payment"?
thanks Ben, at some point would love to hear your thoughts on what card(s) are best to achieve or maintain airline/hotel status.
My challenge with Atmos, in general, is that it's been hard to use the 100K companion certificate. I recently booked a J ticket with AAdvantage to Paris for 57,500 pp out of a secondary market, but to get to Paris with Atmos I needed to get to a gateway first, and then the cost was 200K+. That scenario has repeated itself several times, which I find annoying, and detracts from the value proposition.
Ben- what are your top uses for the 100K companion ticket? Any sweet spots? Any uses to avoid?
@ Lucon -- I'd say the biggest goal is to just try to redeem it for a ticket that's as expensive as possible, though also don't be afraid to use it on an award that costs 75K points or so, as it's better to get some use than no use. I haven't redeemed it yet (I just earned my first one, close to the account anniversary), and my plan is to probably fly AA J to Europe using it at some point, given the availability out of MIA.
I would worry about even being able to use the 25,000 companion award. I have in the past qualified for these 2-4-1 awards on BA and the like, and then could never find availability for 2 award seats on the same flight.
@ Tom -- Everyone will be different, but just as an example, we did a family ski trip to SLC, and I could book American first class from MIA to SLC for 25K points one-way, and then the companion was covered. That was pretty great.
@ Pauls98 -- I just recently earned my first 100K-point Global Companion Award, so I don't have any direct experience with redeeming it yet (I've used the 25K-point Global Companion Award for flights from MIA to the West Coast in American first class).
If you're mixing partners on awards (I imagine that was the case for your 57.5K AA redemption?), then obviously Atmos Rewards is rough. Personally, I'll probably end up using this certificate for a roundtrip business class award on American from the US to Europe, as I find a decent amount of space there out of Miami, and Atmos Rewards typically has lower pricing for that than AAdvantage.
You're right, though, the issue is that finding multiple seats on carriers like Japan Airlines and Starlux can be challenging, and to really maximize the certificate, you'd want to travel roundtrip.
@Ben...yes, the AA redemption did have an Aer Lingus segment. Thank you very much for your reply!
@Lucky We are looking to get this card for P2 but are looking to wait another month or so before applying. Do you have a sense for how long this "limited time" offer will last, or will you get a heads up from BoA on when it will be coming to an end like last time?
@ PhilBob -- Unfortunately I have no sense of when it will be pulled. Bank of America does sometimes provide "last chance" notice, so if I hear anything, I'll be sure to report back. These offers do usually stick around for several weeks, but of course there's no guarantee that will be the case this time around.
I just applied online thru this site and was (close to) instantly approved with a $27K limit, which is good enough. It helped that I used to have a BofA account. That was a decade ago but they still knew about me, which meant that the application was pre-filled and very quick.
100k cert is hard to use. BA obviously has enough availability but it's a bit hard to swallow $1000+ in fees.
Unless you're a big time AS/HA flyer, this card's usefulness comes down to how much natural spending you do internationally. (I say "natural" because even if you can force a website to charge you in foreign currency for a domestic purchase, you're almost certainly paying the website + your bank more than 1% for their "no fee" fx rates, at which point you might as well just use a 2x card in USD.)