Big Alaska Atmos Rewards Summit Card Offer: 80K Points & 25K Award

Atmos points are valuable, but beware about phantom inventory for partner flights.

Can seem like lots of flights available but then ends up being none when you actually click to book.

Agreed...learned that lesson the hard way last fall trying to book flights across the Pacific. And they refuse to do anything to correct the issues in their system!

I thought it was an isolated issue but turns out there is very active threads on Flyertalk about it.

It’s pervasive, but some partners (e.g., JAL) seem to more impacted than others.

Those 100,000 bonus points sound great, but they are devaluing faster than one can search for open seats. Caveat Emptor.

Condor J at 330 days out is almost always phantom.

It's maddening, but it's a known issue. For years.

How big is it?

The 50% discount for a future flight is good for travel in the fall, not summer.

They totally know about it. I emailed Brett Catlin their VP Loyalty about it and he replied: "... We’re actively working to improve how and when we notify guests about partner award availability, specifically, surfacing inventory issues earlier in the booking flow rather than at checkout. This challenge isn’t unique to Alaska, but we know it creates confusion and frustration. Providing early notifications of discrepancies is a priority, and we’re activity making changes to reduce the disconnect and improve visibility."

Great corporate speak for "we're aware of the issue, we're not going to do anything about it because it benefits us to have people earning millions of Atmos points on credit cards and then not actually being able to redeem them while we hide behind easily solvable IT issues".

It really is a scam, they could totally fix it. They willingly choose not to.

The biggest benefit of this card that doesn't get talked about much is the ability to pool your miles. We're a family of 4 all with our own mileage accounts and being able to pool all our miles into one account makes everything so much easier.

How does that work? Was aware of that with Aeroplan and jetBlue, but not Alaska. If so, that’s awesome.

"Redeem Atmos Rewards points for Qatar Airways business class"

Who has done this? I mean for reals. I looked at the peak of our recent Iran war, when drones were busy and every transit flight was cancelled and people were scurred to head to the middle east and there wasn't a single business class award seat from LAX or SFO. (Tons for BA, though.)

I think this is an award-in-name-only.

Great breakdown of this offer, Ben! The combination of 100K points, a 25K Global Companion Award, and a 50% flight discount is genuinely hard to ignore especially valuing Atmos points at 1.5 cents each, that's nearly $1,875 in value right out of the gate. The 3x on foreign purchases alone makes this a keeper long-term for frequent international travelers. I applied last month and was instantly approved. For anyone on the fence, the math really does speak for itself here!

High "annual fee" = "good value" . Ha-Ha .

Aeroflot is not "awesome" .

Lipstick on a pig.

No one said the Russian airline was.

You more of a S7 or Ural guy?

Just was ablre to use the 25k companion cert for JAL Prem Econ SFO-NRT. So I had booked this trip, albeit not on our desired travel date. My wife reminds me she has the Summitt card and the 25k cert. it took a few trys and a few phone calls but git it to work. So we got the day of travel for 25k less points. 75k and fees for both seats. Atmos miles are very valuable and the ability to cancep and get everything back is worth its weight in gold. Agreed almost all US based carriers allow cancellation of reward tickets right up to departure. The Summitt 3x points outside US is huge. I may get this card as well. I am almost under 5-24, but this card might be a keeper, may have to wait another few months to get under 5-24 if I get the Summitt. Two Summitts in one household, maybe, just maybe.

Have you seen that Alaska increased award priced on AA partner flights fairly substantially this week? I noticed a domestic first class ticket with one stop went from 20k Atmos points on May 27 to 35k points on May 28. Every single route I watch has increased. Economy by ~25% and First Class by ~40%. Was this announced? Makes the points for this card less valuable.

215K minimum DOH to LAX or DOH TO SFO. Jet Blue had them for 195K not long ago.

100k points is peanuts when most pacific and Atlantic flights in J costs 200k+ … lolz

You call $395 a high annual fee? Man you must be in a different financial zip code than I am. I have the CSR and Amex Platinum - now those are high annual fees (but both make sense to me). $395 is a rounding error.

Ben has article on that, it will come up in search

I actually got the other Alaska card based on OMAAT recommendation, and I regret it. It all looks good on paper, but good luck redeeming the points for a premium seat here in the NYC area. The customer service is a pretty sad joke, too. I tried to get my Condor miles credited, and that was a major quest; I would hate to deal with these clowns in an urgency. So, yeah, thanks, I’ll skip.

“Specifically, you are eligible for this card if you have any of the other Atmos Rewards cards, whether personal or business.” So if I don’t have another Atmos card, I’m NOT eligible? Is that correct? That doesn’t sound right.

Partner awards are the golden ticket.

AA/EI/IB/DE/JX/QF/JL saver seats are great.

But the REAL superpower of the Atmos system is the AA partner domestic awards. Dirt cheap rates, you can fund your entire domestic travel for ages if you are able to be a bit flexible about flight timings etc. They've already made it a bit less golden than before (for example, no more directs within a few days of departure) but you can still find 1 stoppers to get nearly anywhere that AA goes.

Well yeah, what do most J flights cost in cash? How is half of that peanuts?

Just got approved for the card using your link Ben! I was denied for this card last year even though I have an 800 credit score and a mortgage with B of A. Glad it was approved this time around. Hoping to score a flight in business class from LAX-TPE for 75k but those are extremely rare. I'm ok paying 175k if needed since the 100k sub + 25k GCP makes it easier to accept.

I have been trying to Book for weeks on Alaska, The seats are there But cannot Book " Sorry not available".

I think he means even if you have other Atmos Rewards cards.

Ben, I appreciate you identifying the severe restrictions Alaska has on the 50% off a ticket. Their advertising is extremely misleading, and a fairly deep dive is necessary to drill into the details and find them. You have to think it's too good to be true, and really want to look for it and find it in the finest of their fine points. Thanks for calling out the limitations right upfront.