Here’s a change that I don’t personally mind (based on my own consumer behavior), but that’s objectively negative…
In this post:
Atmos Rewards partner award booking fee increases by 60%
Atmos Rewards is the loyalty program of Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines, and offers all kinds of great redemption opportunities. If you do book an award ticket that includes travel on a partner airline, there’s a partner award booking fee, beyond the taxes and government fees.
Up until now, that partner award booking fee has been $12.50 per passenger per direction. However, Atmos Rewards has updated its website to reflect that this fee will be increasing to $20 for bookings made as of July 1, 2026.
So that’s a 60% increase in the fee, and that can really add up, when you consider it’s both per direction and per person. If you’re two people traveling roundtrip, you’re looking at $45 in fees currently, and with this change, you’d be looking at $80 in fees.
The good news is that as before, the $395 annual fee Atmos™ Rewards Summit Visa Infinite® Credit Card (review), which is super lucrative, offers a partner award booking fee waiver. This applies on an unlimited number of bookings, as long as the points come out of the cardmember’s account, and as long as you use the card to pay the taxes and fees on the ticket.
That waiver is expected to stay in place even when the fee increases. So if you do redeem Atmos Rewards points, that greatly increases the incentive to have this card, since it’ll become more valuable, in terms of the potential savings.
This is a junk fee, but the change doesn’t offend me much
To state the obvious, the partner award booking fee is a total junk fee. Back in the day there was a fee for booking by phone, though in the meantime, almost everyone books online, so that’s probably why we saw this fee introduced.
Let’s be honest here, this is a fee intended to help the economics of partner awards. When you redeem your points on a partner airline, money changes hands, and the math has to make sense. These fees are a small thing that helps with making these redemptions breakeven or profitable, and that’s why you’ll find similar fees with Air Canada Aeroplan, Avianca Lifemiles, etc.
Of course I don’t like the fees, but I get it. And as someone who has the Atmos Rewards Summit Card, I actually don’t mind this change personally, in the sense that I won’t be impacted by it (I know that’s a selfish stance, but I’m just sharing my take based on my own situation, and am not suggesting others shouldn’t care).
It’s kind of similar to how loyalty programs have varying points expiration policies. Ideally points would never expire, though I also understand that there’s a cost to not having points expire, and personally I’d rather programs invest in rewarding active and engaged members.
I suspect Atmos Rewards made this change for two reasons, beyond just generally trying to generate more revenue through fees:
- I imagine this is intended to drive more sign-ups to the Atmos Rewards Summit Card
- With the changes we’ve seen to Atmos Rewards over time, the new sweet spot is short haul redemptions, particularly on American, so I imagine this has greatly upped the volume of award tickets that are issued; so a higher fee can help with making the economics of those redemptions work, compared to devaluing the award chart
Bottom line
As of July 2026, Atmos Rewards is increasing the partner award booking fee from $12.50 to $20, a 60% increase. This fee applies per direction and per person when booking an award that includes travel on partner airlines. Fortunately as before, those with the Atmos Rewards Summit Card aren’t subject to this.
This is of course a negative change, and it’s clearly intended to drive credit card sign-ups, and more importantly, increase revenue associated with award redemptions.
What do you make of Atmos Rewards increasing the partner award booking fee?
i think the existence of the fee also partly has to do with dissuading serial booking/cancelation cycles - presumably there's some backend cost for issuing the ticket that becomes deadweight loss if the user cancels, especially repeatedly (that said, i suspect the current fee is probably sufficient for these purposes, so the increase is probably driven by the factors discussed in the article)
Next stop - goodbye distance based partner awards. Kicking myself for wasting valuable credit space for signing up for an Atmos card earlier this year
I’m curious how you deal with this in terms of travel insurance? I try to put all airfare and hotels on the CSR. Obviously I don’t love that with Alaska awards, since I have the Alaska credit card too, but I want the CSR’s travel insurance, especially since I have my hotels booked with that too.
@Gene said:
"Again, Ben let's 'em slide by...Alaska is leading the race to the bottom."
I'm sure AS didn't bother to contact Lucky to ask his opinion on how they set their fees and if you think AS is leading the race to the bottom among the airlines, you REALLY don't get out enough.
@Johnny said:
"...when it's glossed over by people like you and other bloggers, other airlines get the idea and...
@Gene said:
"Again, Ben let's 'em slide by...Alaska is leading the race to the bottom."
I'm sure AS didn't bother to contact Lucky to ask his opinion on how they set their fees and if you think AS is leading the race to the bottom among the airlines, you REALLY don't get out enough.
@Johnny said:
"...when it's glossed over by people like you and other bloggers, other airlines get the idea and implement it as well."
Lucky writes great content and is the hardest workin' man among the rabble of P&M bloggers but, even so, I'm the decision makers have better things to do with their time than read the scribblings of a bunch of self-interested bloggers and that goes double for their grumbling commenters. The airlines don't need any help at all figuring out new and creative ways to screw over their customers
Dude, you really have no clue. I know my stuff from many millions of miles of travelling. Alaksa is masterfully fooling everyone as they rip off their passengers. It is truly impressive how they have pulled the wool over everyone's eyes. Wake up and smell the coffee, dude.
It's no big deal only if you click on the link so Ben can get a referral on a credit card that allows you to avoid the fee. For the rest of us, it's a huge deal.
@ bo -- That's not what I'm saying. My point is that even after factoring in the $20 fee, you're often going to get a much better deal through Atmos Rewards than through other programs. You have to factor in the overall redemption value, including the points requirements, the cash outlay, flexibility offered by tickets, etc.
I really appreciate how AS tries to deflect the macro-economic pressures away from its best customers (Atmos elites and Summit card holders) by raising fees that are easily avoided (like partner award booking fee and checked baggage fees) rather than increasing base fares or devaluing the award chart. Thank you!
Again, Ben let's 'em slide by with some ripoff fee since it drives him more credit card buiness. In reality, it is a BIG deal, and it's yet another reason that Alaska is leading the race to the bottom.
@ Gene -- You really think Alaska is leading the race to the bottom? Like, you think ahead of Delta? You don't think that's a bit hyperbolic?
Honestly, I think the changes in the last 24-36 months by Alaska have been far worse than any changes by Delta over that same period.
I will agree with the hyperbolic part. I think Delta's horrible changes over the past 15 years have numbed everyone to the point where they don't accurately see the Alaska changes for how terrible they truely are.
I'm not sure why you're not strongly against this on principle, not based on how it affects you personally. Normally you call out the companies much more strongly than you did here over crap like this. The thing is... when it's glossed over by people like you and other bloggers, other airlines get the idea and implement it as well. Guess what? Other credit cards don't have the partner booking fee waiver, so when American...
I'm not sure why you're not strongly against this on principle, not based on how it affects you personally. Normally you call out the companies much more strongly than you did here over crap like this. The thing is... when it's glossed over by people like you and other bloggers, other airlines get the idea and implement it as well. Guess what? Other credit cards don't have the partner booking fee waiver, so when American or someone else implements it - then YOU ARE affected! It'll be too late then b/c the airlines are much monkey see, monkey do.
@ Johnny -- I totally hear you, and to be clear, my lack of objection isn't just that I don't have to pay the fee. I have similar feelings about the Aeroplan and Lifemiles fees, which I do have to pay.
Ultimately I look for programs that deliver value in terms of outsized redemption opportunities. What's funny is that Aeroplan, Atmos Rewards, and Lifemiles, all have these fees, yet they're all programs committed to actually...
@ Johnny -- I totally hear you, and to be clear, my lack of objection isn't just that I don't have to pay the fee. I have similar feelings about the Aeroplan and Lifemiles fees, which I do have to pay.
Ultimately I look for programs that deliver value in terms of outsized redemption opportunities. What's funny is that Aeroplan, Atmos Rewards, and Lifemiles, all have these fees, yet they're all programs committed to actually offering outsized values on redemptions. I of course understand the math has to work as well, because these redemptions come at a cost.
Let me contrast those programs to ones that don't have fees, like Delta SkyMiles. Talk about a program where outsized opportunities are a lot more limited. Should I be more on the team of liking Delta SkyMiles because they don't have the fees but have high redemption rates, or liking Alaska Atmos Rewards because they do have fees, but have reasonable redemption rates?
Or let me give another example, with a program that does actually deliver value. When I want to fly from Miami to Tampa, I can either redeem 4,500 Atmos Rewards points, or 7,500 AAdvantage miles. The former is a better value for me than the latter, even if I had to pay the partner booking fee. So should I slam Alaska for the fee, while ignoring the 3,000 points savings, or what?
I have to agree. I have the card, so I'm immune (for now). But generally, this sets a very bad precedent and the fee is high. To pay $20 for a short haul flight that sometimes sells for around $40 or $50 is absurd.
Junk fee as Ben put it, but there should be more pushback/negative coverage.
Fees, fees, fees. Very European airline of them. It's actually a mistake, because it's the one area of parity that DL/UA/AA have - no fees, just use your miles. Makes them seem second tier. An extra $7.50 is not driving CC sign-ups except for real power users.
@ Peter_ -- In fairness, there was no parity before this change, so whether the fee is $12.50 or $20, Atmos Rewards is at a disadvantage. But you have to view that in the overall context of the value offered by redemptions.
Also, regarding European airlines, there's a big difference between a $12.50-20 fee, and $1,000+ in carrier imposed surcharges.
They also stopped allowing most partner award changes and require cancelling and rebooking with payment of new partner booking fee.