| Update: An Alaska spokesperson has confirmed that there was a technical issue affecting the prices of some connections on partner flights involving Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and that issue has been resolved. There are no changes to the award charts. For context, you can find the initial story from yesterday (March 15, 2026) below. |
We’ll mark this as “developing” for now, as it remains to be seen whether this is a massive devaluation, or just a glitch.
In this post:
Alaska Atmos Rewards greatly increases award costs
The Alaska Atmos Rewards program publishes award charts, a practice that many of us appreciate, thanks to the transparency it provides. The award charts show the “starting at” price when redeeming points, but the intent is that for travel on partner airlines, that’s the pricing that should apply if there’s saver award space (you’ll sometimes find higher priced awards, for situations where there’s non-saver availability).
However, something very strange is going on at the moment, whereby many partner awards with connections have higher pricing than you’d expect (this was flagged on FlyerTalk). Let me explain with a couple of examples. Below is Atmos Rewards’ Europe, Middle East, and Africa award chart, which is relevant for this example.
For example, if you want to fly from Dallas (DFW) to Helsinki (HEL) on Finnair, you’ll find pricing is 35,000 points in economy, or 70,000 points in business class, which is what you’d expect, based on the distance of 5,001-7,000 miles.
If you add a connection to Stockholm (ARN) to the same itinerary, the number of points required should remain unchanged. However, I’m finding pricing of 55,000 points in economy, or 110,000 points in business class, so that’s way higher than you’d expect.
As another example, if you want to fly from Chicago (ORD) to Madrid (MAD) on Iberia, you’ll find pricing of 27,500 points in economy, or 55,000 points in business class, based on the distance of 3,501-5,000 miles.
If you add a connection to Barcelona (BCN) to the same itinerary, the number of points required should remain unchanged. However, I’m finding pricing of 35,000 points in economy, or 70,000 points in business class.
Is this a devaluation, glitch, or something else?
I’m trying to get an answer as to what’s going on here, and will report back once I learn more. As I see it, there are two most likely explanations.
One explanation is that this is in fact a devaluation. Some people might point out that as a condition of Alaska’s takeover of Hawaiian, the airline had to agree to not devalue its points. However, per the terms of the agreement, that specifically excludes partner award flights.
That being said, I wouldn’t expect Atmos Rewards management to devalue points in this way, since they care about running a competitive program, and I’d also expect them to communicate this more clearly. Transparency and member trust is something they value.
The other explanation is that this is a glitch, or at least wasn’t supposed to be rolled out yet. If it was a glitch, what could the explanation be? Could it be that a devaluation is planned, but it was accidentally rolled out too early, and perhaps not exactly as intended? Or could it be that the airline is updating its software in preparation of rolling out more multi-partner awards (which is long overdue)?
Like I said, I’ll provide an update once I know more, because this is not great…
Bottom line
Alaska Atmos Rewards appears to have greatly increased award costs in many markets. Specifically, many partner awards with connections are pricing much higher than before, and aren’t following the award chart. I hope this is a glitch and not an intentional devaluation, but I guess we’ll see…
What do you make of this very high Atmos Rewards award pricing?
This issue still doesn't seem to be resolved. Creating multi-city (or stopover) partner awards is still pricing higher than booking segment by segment. :(
Some partner airlines that seem to be affected are AY and AT
Still looks like a massive deval from current charts no matter what Alaskan spokesman say. Is anyone seeing anything different?
I'm still seeing significantly elevated pricing as well, esp on Condor. No adjustment after the announcement from Alaska noted at the top (at least in Condor)
Just curious is anyone buying any more Atmos miles? For such a great program I really don't see the point anymore with such terrible devaluations. Condor used to be 85K JFK-FRA-BKK now its 4 times that or more. Contrast that with just buying a biz class Condor ticket, its much better value now to just pay $$$. Are we moving into a time of just looking for the best biz price and paying it, is better than the points and credit card game? Sadly it looks that way.
I was loyal to Alaska (even paying more or flight with connections). Elite member for 10+ years. They used to have the best customer service (on and off board) and best award value. The last one was Condor J for me. Now, even that is gone. What's the point anymore?
Lucky, whoever gave you the info is trying to pull a fast one. I alerted you about the flyertalk thread and example. I just looked at the website: now BKK-YYZ is 250K on condor J. On sunday, it was 130K (when i alerted you). On Friday night, it was 85K. All same route all same class. There were many days available across the whole calendar. Don't let them tell you saver is not available. For...
Lucky, whoever gave you the info is trying to pull a fast one. I alerted you about the flyertalk thread and example. I just looked at the website: now BKK-YYZ is 250K on condor J. On sunday, it was 130K (when i alerted you). On Friday night, it was 85K. All same route all same class. There were many days available across the whole calendar. Don't let them tell you saver is not available. For the entire year? When there was a lot of saver availabilty on Friday night (3 days ago?).
Bouncing off this, it seems AS has removed ALL Condor J availability from North America to FRA. There still is some from FRA to BKK. Digging in they are only showing NA-FRA flights as D fares while JetBlue shows saver (I fare) availability along with Seats fare class tool and expert flyer clearly showing there is I fare availability even as AS is only offering D.
The net result from this is YYZ-FRA business class...
Bouncing off this, it seems AS has removed ALL Condor J availability from North America to FRA. There still is some from FRA to BKK. Digging in they are only showing NA-FRA flights as D fares while JetBlue shows saver (I fare) availability along with Seats fare class tool and expert flyer clearly showing there is I fare availability even as AS is only offering D.
The net result from this is YYZ-FRA business class has gone from 85k to 130k to 375k in 3 days. (the 250k in the post above are Qatar/other AS partner awards).
You are right!! It has gone from 85K to 375K in 3 days. I didn't click details after seeing 250K in calendar for J. Thinking that must be condor. Nope. I was wrong. It's even worst.
It’s not just Rewards. I was shopping for a British Airways nonstop return flight from San Francisco to London and it was double for the same flight booking through Alaska than booking through the BA app. $1400 vs $700. Fortunately BA took my Atmos number, so I’ll at least get some credit for the flight but very disappointing nonetheless.
Thanks for adding the text box at the top with the updated info. I hope that becomes the standard for future updated articles so we don't need to play a game of "spot the differences" to figure out what changed.
I second that!
Thanks Lucky!! :)
Have we learned nothing from BILT 2.0, Hyatt devaluation... Alaska is following the same strategy... Leak, back-lash, denial, back-track, let it cool down, then do it anyway. "Fly, you fools..."
Yes, the classic trial balloon
Hi Ben,
Sorry if this has already been suggested (as I, for some reason, can't see most of the messages), but this simply seems to be an inventory/revenue management issue.
There are various inventory classes for award tickets with Alaska and many other airlines. It appears that the lower inventory (35K/70K) is available on the non-stop to HEL, but with the connection to ARN, only the higher inventory class(es). In fact, with the...
Hi Ben,
Sorry if this has already been suggested (as I, for some reason, can't see most of the messages), but this simply seems to be an inventory/revenue management issue.
There are various inventory classes for award tickets with Alaska and many other airlines. It appears that the lower inventory (35K/70K) is available on the non-stop to HEL, but with the connection to ARN, only the higher inventory class(es). In fact, with the married segments, the lower award inventory may not be available on either the transatlantic or the connecting segment.
If you put in 12/2/26, DFW to ARN, you will see that the 35K/70K are still pricing with a connection via HEL.
I feel like with all these devaluations, airlines have already been stingy in awarding miles/points, moving from distance to ticket price based. So we'd see "distanced-based pricing" for redemptions (I've seen redemptions as high as 1.4M from Delta) but "cost based" pricing for awarding miles.
Visiting my godson roundtrip from PDX MFR used to be 7,000 pts. It's now no less than 25k! :(
Would love to see this addressed, and of course improved.
It’s been so many years since they promised multi partner awards that I had forgotten they even promised it.
I think this is the new normal, even for shorter haul flights. I used to book flights from DFW on American to ATL, PHX, and other places like Raleigh for 9k miles round trip, even for same day flights. I’m now seeing these same flights for 17k round trip a month+ out.
I would be surprised to see the AA 4,500 and 7,500 points redemptions stick around for too much longer. BA Avios started out with the exact same price points and too many bookings forced that mileage based redemption to disappear. Anyays let us hope it lasts thru 2026
Lucky, whoever gave you the info is trying to pull a fast one. I alerted you about the flyertalk thread and example. I just looked at the website: now BKK-YYZ is 250K on condor J. On sunday, it was 130K (when i alerted you). On Friday night, it was 85K. All same route all same class. There were many days available across the whole calendar. Don't let them tell you saver is not available. For...
Lucky, whoever gave you the info is trying to pull a fast one. I alerted you about the flyertalk thread and example. I just looked at the website: now BKK-YYZ is 250K on condor J. On sunday, it was 130K (when i alerted you). On Friday night, it was 85K. All same route all same class. There were many days available across the whole calendar. Don't let them tell you saver is not available. For the entire year? When there was a lot of saver availabilty on Friday night (3 days ago?).
I am checking from TPE to WAS, last week it was 250k and this week it went up to 300k. I hope it's system glitch, even some airlines announced that they will increase ticket prices because of gas prices, but for business class it jumped from 85k to 300k seems to be unreal.
This looks like segment by segment pricing TBH. It could very well be a glitch, which would sort of correlate with the program also having difficulty pricing and showing multi-partner awards. Adding another flight may break something internally.
It's more expensive than segment. A 42.5k segment and a 7.5k segment booked together cost 65k instead of 50k.
If people start complaining, then it was a "Glitch". If not too much is raised about the massive Devaluation, then it stays.
Gotta love how LUCKY was hying these cards beyond belief saying it was such an amazing program and amazing rewards. Now that we all signed up and he got his referral bonuses, Alaska pulls the rug out from under us...
"That being said, I wouldn’t expect Atmos Rewards management to devalue points in this way, since they care about running a competitive program, and I’d also expect them to communicate this more clearly. Transparency and member trust is something they value."
Why, exactly, would you think this is actually the case? Assuming this is real and not a glitch of some kind, this wouldn't be the first time that AS has been caught sneaking through...
"That being said, I wouldn’t expect Atmos Rewards management to devalue points in this way, since they care about running a competitive program, and I’d also expect them to communicate this more clearly. Transparency and member trust is something they value."
Why, exactly, would you think this is actually the case? Assuming this is real and not a glitch of some kind, this wouldn't be the first time that AS has been caught sneaking through a no-notice devaluation. Why AS consistently gets a pass for the exact same behavior other airlines get dragged for will forever be a mystery to me.
...because the folks who run the AS program have repeatedly said, in no uncertain terms, that they see the loyalty program as a real differentiator for AS, and they conduct themselves accordingly.
it's certainly possible that these folks got railroaded by bloodthirsty bankers who can only see 2 months in advance - but imho it'd be wise to wait for more evidence before assuming that is what happened, given the AS history of generally acting...
...because the folks who run the AS program have repeatedly said, in no uncertain terms, that they see the loyalty program as a real differentiator for AS, and they conduct themselves accordingly.
it's certainly possible that these folks got railroaded by bloodthirsty bankers who can only see 2 months in advance - but imho it'd be wise to wait for more evidence before assuming that is what happened, given the AS history of generally acting in good faith w/r/t its loyalty program.
I know Aer Lingus also just adds the award from the hub to the further city to an award price ignoring award charts. But many airlines are impossible to find awards past their home hub anyway making one get a 2nd award or pay cash onward. (Iberia).
Sounds like they’ve adopted Delta’s additive award pricing
It's more than additive. BOS-HKG is 42.5k which is correct, HKG-MNL is 7.5k which is correct, but BOS-HKG-MNL is 65k vs 50k additive or 42.5k total according to the chart and what's always been charged.
For flights booked on partner American , a extra 5000 miles per segment has been standard for at least a couple years.
But oddly, the opposite can be true too. IE RDU-LHR (direct on AA) is consistently 27.5k in econ, but the same route with a connection (IE RDU-CLT-LHR) is consistently 22.5k in econ, despite the (slightly) longer distance.
You are looking at off peak rate on going, and peak rate coming back. AA has peak rate from main cabin flights to Europe.
Nothing new here Alaska continues its race to the bottom and below
There are massive complaints about Alaska for massive point devaluations and a recent thread on Flyertalk with numerous complaints on IT and its customer service failures and the likes.It's interesting that the thread was called a train wreck by a moderator who closed it despite many hundreds of valid complaints.
Unfortunately the train wreck is Alaska who needs to look in...
Nothing new here Alaska continues its race to the bottom and below
There are massive complaints about Alaska for massive point devaluations and a recent thread on Flyertalk with numerous complaints on IT and its customer service failures and the likes.It's interesting that the thread was called a train wreck by a moderator who closed it despite many hundreds of valid complaints.
Unfortunately the train wreck is Alaska who needs to look in the mirror.
Its not uncommon to see point awards that were 45 and 55k in business like Fiji now 350 points one way.They joined one world,bought Hawaiian and became a bunch of greedy whores.Those big sign up credit card bonuses have essentially been taken away as their greed continues to grow with huge devaluations.Can't wait to drain my account and move on especially to some INT programs
I can only imagine Trumps wars will make things extremely worse with fuel increases.
But it's OK because the bloggers who endlessly and repeatedly hyped all the credit cards got their fat payoffs, so all good. Missions Accomplished. Sorry, suckers.
It's been like this for months.
Not sure if this blog is slow to the news, but this has been frequently occuring already.
For example, SFO to TPE is 75k, SFO to TPE to KIX jumps up to 130k, even though it should only be 85k. A lot of the time, if you're booking connections, you're better off just doing it separately, as SFO to TPE is 75k, and TPE to KIX is 15k.
Silent devaluation. Business one way between East Coast USA and Thailand used to be 100K miles until a few months back, now it is (rarely) 215K and usually 300K or more.
They haven't messed up East Coast flights on American for 7500 miles - yet.
Is this saver availability or expanded access buckets?
I don’t believe this is very new, perhaps just that it has been rolled out further. I flew Condor on an Alaska award in February, booked in December. SEA-FRA was priced at 70K. Adding a connection to ZRH or BER, which is frustratingly only ever available in Y for Condor European connections even though they have a J cabin, raised the price to 85K, despite still being within the same distance band. I don’t think...
I don’t believe this is very new, perhaps just that it has been rolled out further. I flew Condor on an Alaska award in February, booked in December. SEA-FRA was priced at 70K. Adding a connection to ZRH or BER, which is frustratingly only ever available in Y for Condor European connections even though they have a J cabin, raised the price to 85K, despite still being within the same distance band. I don’t think the program is nearly as focused on user value as it once was.
With United touting lower mileage rates with a United Chase CC starting April second and this pretty brutal deval does this mean the choice between a Chase United or Alaskan CC is simple?
Not significant enough to call it a devaluation, more an adjustment on fares. Which companies do all the time.
Regardless, Alaska pts must and will devalue. Whether it’s thru incremental adjustments (such as this article’s issue) or 1-2 big changes.
Nothing "must" happen if an airline wants to remain remotely passenger-friendly.
70k -> 110k is not significant?!?! It's more than a 50% deval.
For the large number of Alaska customers residing at one of their regional airports (for example those that may be a mere 30-45 min flight from SEA, PDX, HNL, ANC), to add those connections to international flights (on small E175 jets with not even a hint of drink service), Alaska jacks up the redemption price by an ADDITIONAL 40k points. The outrageous pricing is most evident on Alaska's own metal, where they charge an extreme...
For the large number of Alaska customers residing at one of their regional airports (for example those that may be a mere 30-45 min flight from SEA, PDX, HNL, ANC), to add those connections to international flights (on small E175 jets with not even a hint of drink service), Alaska jacks up the redemption price by an ADDITIONAL 40k points. The outrageous pricing is most evident on Alaska's own metal, where they charge an extreme increment in price for planes that remain mostly empty, as they aren't filling from cash sales either. The high prices and lower quality of soft and hard product does not attract customers. Alaska has destroyed shareholder value, with stock prices being at their lowest in the last 18 months. It seems that the ONLY measure of success at Alaska Airlines, is how many customers they can push to Delta and United, and how many Italian suits can be put into Minicucci's closet. The customer experience has been destroyed, and Alaska corporate seems determined to continue to destroy shareholder value and take advantage of loyal customers. At least they have a new generic 787 livery that everyone thinks is WestJet and doesn't stand out at all at foreign airports.
I actually just wrote to Alaska about this. I booked my parents LAX-NAN-AKL for 75k, which is correct, but wanted to change dates and DFW-NAN-AKL recent came available for 2 seats in business class on the day I was looking for, but it was at 130k, when it should be at 85k for that distance. And all other partners got the same 2 seats at their lowest award price for that routing, so I don’t...
I actually just wrote to Alaska about this. I booked my parents LAX-NAN-AKL for 75k, which is correct, but wanted to change dates and DFW-NAN-AKL recent came available for 2 seats in business class on the day I was looking for, but it was at 130k, when it should be at 85k for that distance. And all other partners got the same 2 seats at their lowest award price for that routing, so I don’t think it was variable pricing. Really hoping it’s just a glitch. Assuming it was, since 130k is the next jump in pricing in terms of their distance bands. If this is the devaluation they’re going for then I would be worried we’ve lost all sweet spots that make Alaska worth prioritizing. Fingers crossed it was just a fluke!
Do not expect a reply from Alaska; or maybe they just take a long, long, long time to get around to replying.
Thank you for looking into this! I wrote a comment about this in your other article this morning. Hopefully it's just a glitch. Condor pricing is really weird for multiple segments award tix both for Asia-N. America and Africa- N. America. Asia-N. America is supposed to start FROM 85K in business (according to award chart) but it's showing 130K (which is the starting price for first class). Also, they had a system update on Friday...
Thank you for looking into this! I wrote a comment about this in your other article this morning. Hopefully it's just a glitch. Condor pricing is really weird for multiple segments award tix both for Asia-N. America and Africa- N. America. Asia-N. America is supposed to start FROM 85K in business (according to award chart) but it's showing 130K (which is the starting price for first class). Also, they had a system update on Friday night/ Saturday morning. I noticed the price change right away since I was in the middle of booking a return flight.
I still see FCO-LHR-IAD for 55k looking early 2027, which is what the price should be. Horrible surcharges of course but pricing doesn't seem deflated
The whole promise not to devalue for condition of merger was and still is one of the dumbest conditions I’ve seen.
Devalue on a basis of what? If the cost of airfare continues to rise, can the ‘value’ of points be devalued at the rate of inflation, or the rate of airfare increases, or truly not at all? The last is what most people interpreted but any court would agree that is unreasonable. Imagine, in...
The whole promise not to devalue for condition of merger was and still is one of the dumbest conditions I’ve seen.
Devalue on a basis of what? If the cost of airfare continues to rise, can the ‘value’ of points be devalued at the rate of inflation, or the rate of airfare increases, or truly not at all? The last is what most people interpreted but any court would agree that is unreasonable. Imagine, in 30 years, the cost of J to Europe is still 70,000 atmos points, but with inflation you now earn 70,000 miles on a one way SEA-SAN flight in economy. Sounds sustainable to me.
Whole thing is just dumb. Yet people put so much value on that clause.
Something is going on for sure. It shows HYD-CMB-KUL for 130,000 in J on 2/5/27. However, if I book the two segments separately, they are 15,000 each.
When the "amazing" Atmos credit cards were launched, I commented on this blog predicting this outcome. @Ben you replied saying you thought I was wrong. It gives me no pleasure to say i think it looks like I was right. :(
"It gives me no pleasure to say i think it looks like I was right. :("
Then why did you say it?
wah
I am trying to burn all my miles and consider frequent flyer programs to be only of minimal value in the future, with a few rare exceptions, such as an employer paid international business class trip earning some miles.
That's pretty foolish. But you do you.
There's no more foolish statement than "you do you".
Oh I dunno I think "I'll try swallowing that arsenic, how much could it hurt?" is probably higher on the foolish level than 'you do you.'
:D
Those 100k companion certificates from the Summit card must be costing more than they were expected to...
I can't imaging why anyone would desire getting those, when Alaska artificially restricts most seats to "1 Available", rendering them useless.
Way to go - push “amazing” “to good to be true” credit cards, then silently devalue the program…
Probably an AI-written change was rolled out incorrectly tbh, I’d mark this as Developing for now
'wouldn't expect to devalue this way' and "transparency is something they value?" Not the first time they've done this recently. They already silently increased partner award pricing in the same way for some partners in April 2025.
Adding a segment increased pricing depending on the route, e.g. from 75k to 95k for JL metal between east coast and TYO with a domestic segment within Japan on either end. Which was the only way to...
'wouldn't expect to devalue this way' and "transparency is something they value?" Not the first time they've done this recently. They already silently increased partner award pricing in the same way for some partners in April 2025.
Adding a segment increased pricing depending on the route, e.g. from 75k to 95k for JL metal between east coast and TYO with a domestic segment within Japan on either end. Which was the only way to find avail most of the time. Although that was already a pipe dream back then and is hopeless now.
The pricing even for Y and PY has become comical. And their IT is still horrible.
BONVOYED!!!
Well, considering how every blog has been incessantly hyping Alaska's program beyond belief, this is how they all respond to surges in interest. This is what you get - why all the shock?