Atmos Rewards Summit Card Partner Award Booking Fee Waiver Benefit

Link: Learn more about the Atmos™ Rewards Summit Visa Infinite^® Credit Card

The $395 annual fee Atmos™ Rewards Summit Visa Infinite^® Credit Card (review) is the premium personal credit card of Atmos Rewards, which is the combined loyalty program of Alaska & Hawaiian.

There are lots of reasons to get this card, from a huge welcome bonus, to a great return on spending, to valuable perks just for being a cardmember. It’s a card I’ve already applied for.

In this post, I’d like to talk about how the Atmos Rewards Summit Card offers a partner redemption booking fee waiver. Personally, this is a benefit that goes a long way to helping me offset the annual fee, so let’s take a look at the logistics, as I’ve received some questions about it.

How to save on every Atmos Rewards partner award booking

There are lots of great uses of Alaska Atmos Rewards points, especially for travel on partner airlines. If redeeming on partner airlines, the program charges a $12.50 award booking fee, which applies per person, and per direction of travel. So if you book a roundtrip award for two people, you’re looking at $50 worth of fees.

Another thing worth mentioning is that the $12.50 fee is non-refundable. So while you can otherwise cancel and redeposit award tickets at no cost (in terms of getting points and taxes back), that booking fee can’t be refunded.

This is a junk fee, plain and simple, though it’s not uncommon to see programs charge these kinds of fees (Air Canada Aeroplan and Avianca Lifemiles have similar fees), and the program also offers great value in many markets, so it’s a fee worth paying, even if I’m annoyed it exists.

Fortunately this is an area where the the Atmos Rewards Summit Card can help — as a benefit, cardmembers receive a waiver of the partner redemption booking fee. Here’s how this works:

• The primary cardmember using their Atmos Rewards points is eligible for the waiver of the partner award booking fee
• This benefit can be used an unlimited number of times, for one or more travelers, and it doesn’t matter who is traveling (so the cardmember doesn’t need to be one of the travelers)
• In order to receive the waived partner award booking fee, taxes and fees must be purchased with the primary cardmember’s Atmos Rewards Summit Card; the card offers good travel coverage for delayed flights, lost bags, and more, so it’s a good card to use for award ticket fees anyway
• Anecdotally (and this isn’t addressed in the terms, so don’t count on it sticking around), the fee seems to be waived as long as the card is being used to pay the taxes, even if someone else’s Atmos Rewards points are redeemed

How do the logistics of this work? Say you’re, looking at a 4,500-point award from Miami (MIA) to Tampa (TPA) on American, which shows $18.10 in taxes & fees during the booking process (the $12.50 partner award booking fee, plus the $5.60 in taxes & fees).

I have the Atmos Rewards Summit Card saved in my Atmos Rewards profile…

…so then on the payment page (before confirming the reservation), I see the price reduced by $12.50, to just $5.60 total. You’ll see that it says “Atmos Rewards Summit card booking fee waiver,” showing the $12.50 fee subtracted.

Just as a point of comparison, if I instead use the other card connected to my profile, it no longer shows the discount.

These waived $12.50 partner award booking fees add up

I know a waived $12.50 fee might not sound like much on a card with an annual fee of nearly $400. However, to me, this is one of my favorite perks of the Atmos Rewards Summit Card. I redeem Atmos Rewards points on American all the time. Quite honestly, a majority of my domestic and short haul international flying on American is using Atmos Rewards points, given what a good value it is.

I often speculatively lock in these awards too, and without the card, I’d be on the hook for losing the $12.50 non-refundable fee. That’s not a huge deal, but of course if I can avoid it, I will.

Just as an example, below are the reservations confirmations I’ve received from Atmos Rewards in the last few months alone. That’s a total of 20 confirmations, and it includes a total of 34 one-way redemptions (since some trips are for multiple people). That’s $425 in waived partner award booking fees!

With Atoms Rewards having increasingly moved to a program where the best value redemptions are for short haul awards, the frequency with which I redeem has also increased, and that makes the $12.50 waived fee all the more valuable. As you can see, in recent months alone, I’ve more than recouped my annual fee just with these fees.

These great value short haul awards are also the reason there’s merit to American flyers crediting to Atmos Rewards, especially with the program awarding status points for award flights, which pairs nicely with spending on your card to earn status points.

Bottom line

The Atmos Rewards Summit Card offers a huge number of perks, and I’d argue that one of the most underrated benefits is a waived partner award booking fee. Ordinarily, Atmos Rewards charges $12.50 per person per direction for a partner award, on top of the standard taxes and fees.

If you’re anything like me and constantly redeem Atmos Rewards points on American for short haul travel, then this benefit alone can go a long way to recouping the annual fee. Hopefully the above is a useful rundown of how this benefit works, for those who were wondering.

What has your experience been with the Atmos Rewards Summit Card waived partner booking fee?