Deep Dive: Alaska Airlines Atmos Rewards

In today's episode, we're chatting about

• Why Alaska’s Atmos Rewards program is a total sleeper hit in award travel 
• Alaska miles (Atmos Points) can be harder to earn - how we've changed our strategy to earn more
• Real examples of business class award flights to Tahiti and Europe booked via Alaska
• Don't sleep on the Global Companion Certificates 
• The exact sweet spots (like 4,500-point flights 😳) you should be looking for
• The “phantom availability” issue—and how to avoid getting burned

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👋 Hi! I'm Michele!

A points and miles expert, using points for family vacations to Japan, Hawaii, Thailand, Greece, Italy, Spain, theme parks and so much more. 

I don't believe in spending more to earn more points. The key is knowing how to earn the best points and getting massive value from them. 

With a teenager in competitive sports & public school, traveling during the busiest of times is our family's norm. I'll show you my best tips & strategies to use points for making incredible family travel happen. 

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Information was correct to the best of my knowledge at time of recording. Always double check/verify information about cards and or bookings. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Alaska Airlines Atmost Loyalty Program is one of the best ways to book award flights right now. From 4,500-point short-haul one-way flights within the US to award deals to French Polynesia, Europe, and even Japan, I'm breaking down exactly how we use these points to fly their partner airlines and why I've made it such a priority to keep earning them and book more of these going forward. Welcome to the Points and Miles Travel Chats podcast. I'm Michelle from Fancy Travel Pointers, and I believe your everyday spend is a secret to extraordinary travel. If you've ever worried that points are too complicated or wondered if a busy family with public school attendance and competitive sports could really travel with points, I'm here to show you it's absolutely possible. Here's what I know for sure: it's not about spending more. And keeping my credit score sky high, that is always front and center. I'll give you actionable steps, teach real repeatable strategies that transform the way you earn points and the value you get from them. Thanks for being here and let's get to it. Welcome back to Points and Miles Travel Chats Podcast. I'm Michelle from Fancy Travel Pointers, and today we are chatting all about one of the most underrated, lesser-known airlines to book award flights with Alaska. If you have no idea why Alaska needs to be part of your award travel strategy, today I will show you. I started seriously using Alaska Miles just last year, and I cannot believe the deals I got. So I cannot wait to share all of that with you. But first, we will answer two questions that I got on Instagram this week that I think are great questions that could help anybody in the points in miles world. The first question was when you started, how many trips were you taking? I thought this was a great question because you only see my travel life now. And I've been doing this for a super long time. Just as a refresher, we started with Venture Miles back in 2007. And we did that basically from like 2007 till 2016. 2016 is when I got more serious. And then from 2016 to now, I've just kind of ramped up. So if I just go back to 2016, because I feel like that's when I really started to kind of understand a little bit what was going on more, like not just cashing out my points and miles or just covering charges with them, but actually using them in a more sophisticated way, like transferring them to partners, I would say that was 2016. So in those first few years, we were basically taking about three to four simpler vacations a year on points. And they were not all points based. And mine are still not all points based. And I always say that because everyone's different. Some people are like, my whole entire trip will be points, my car rental, my hotel, my flight. And we're definitely not like that. We will try to do the flight in the hotel if we can, but sometimes we can't do both of those. Maybe we'll just do the flight and then pay for hotel, et cetera. In 2016, in those few years that followed, when I really kind of was understanding more of what was going on, we were taking about three to four like low effort trips a year using just basically Southwest flights and our Southwest companion pass and Hyatt points. We were earning the transferable points from a bank and transferring them over to Hyatt. And our years looked the same every year. And I will say that was when we had a small child. So it made sense. Basically, we took one trip to Mexico almost every single year. Southwest flies to Mexico, check. And then mostly we were paying cash for those hotels. We were doing all inclusives, we found a good deal or that we just really wanted to go to. And then our other trips were almost always to Florida because most of our family lived in Florida and we really enjoyed going to Disney. In those early years, it was just like a really good fit. And then our other trips were just staycations. We lived in Austin, Texas, and it was really, really common for us to go once, twice a year to nice Hyattes in San Antonio or the Hyatt Lost Pines, like right next to Austin. So that's how it looked when I first started. Simple, repeatable for a long time, for a lot of years, until I got more comfortable. Very, very slow, but there's no wrong way. You can jump in, you can start really fast. I see a lot of people doing that, but that's how we did it. For me, I am so type A and Virgo and all those things. And I just was like slow and steady for me until I got comfortable. And now I'm like bananas, right? Um, so that was the first question. The second question was this is a question that really is for this moment in time, but I think it can be an important question overall. So, you know, those two massive, huge, I think they're record-breaking. I think I'm not sure welcome offers came out last week. But I've gotten this question again and again. The card itself with benefits is not that good. So is this offer worth it? Is it something I should get? And here's what I would say, and I would say this about most cards, but for sure, definitely this card if you can meet the minimum spend. I don't love the benefits on this card. And I hold currently two of them. I got one about two months ago, a month and a half ago, when it was only at 200,000 points. Only like that's amazing. 200,000 points is insane. Um, but I got it then and I thought that was good enough. Not all cards are forever keepers. Once I've had this card for a year, I will think about it. How am I gonna use this card going forward? Do the benefits make sense? So when you look at an offer like this, a massive, crazy high offer, and you're like, is it worth it? If you don't like all of the benefits and perks on the card, that's okay. You're not stuck with it forever. Once I've had this card for a year, closing a card is okay. And I will put more information about those offers in the show notes. Okay, so now on today's main topic, the Alaska Award program, and why it's really kind of like a sleeper hit that we all need to wake up and take notice of because it's really, really good. So a little background Alaska and Hawaiian are now combined under one loyalty ecosystem. That happened in 2025 and it's called Atmos Rewards. So this is a combined program for both Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines. And today we're gonna talk a little bit about the program itself. We're gonna talk about how do we earn these miles? And then the important part like, what are the sweet spots? Why do I want to know all of this about Alaska? What does it matter? And how can I get the big value from it? So, first we'll talk a little bit about the program. I thought this was really interesting, something I hadn't seen before. And in learning more about Atmos, I was really impressed with this. So, coming soon, the website says it's supposed to come later in 2026. At most members, remember, Atmos is a loyalty program for Hawaiian and Alaska. At most members will be able to choose how they earn points and status points for flights on Alaska and Hawaiian. There will be three different options on earning those. One is flight distance, one is segments flown, and one is amount spent for that flight. You'll be able to choose one of those, which I think is really neat because we all kind of value different things. So for me, I'm almost always going to be booking an award ticket. And so the flight distance is going to make a lot of sense. Especially when I tell you the flights we have already flown that we've booked through Alaska, they were very far away. And so that flight distance will make sense for me. Segments flown would be like maybe you live in Hawaii and you're hopping between the islands, or maybe you're a business traveler and you just take these little short flights, like back and forth and back and forth all the time, and you want those segments. Or if you are spending cash on your flights, then obviously you may want the amount spent. But I think it's really neat that you'll have the choice. And these are for points earned as well as status points earned. I love that it's points that you're earning, and it's also status points that you're earning. Another cool thing, which I think all airlines should do, and I think playing for Wi-Fi on airlines is so super annoying, is that all Atmos members will have access to high-speed Starlink Wi-Fi for free on Alaska Planes, and they are continuing to install that so that they have it on all their planes, which I thought was really nice. So that is some great features about their program, but this is where I think a lot of us get stuck. One of the biggest issues with their rewards program is earning their miles, right? So for many, many airlines, the go-to is earning transferable points from a large bank and then transferring those points to the airline. But with Atmos, unfortunately, that is not an option. They only have two types of points you can transfer to Atmos, and that is built, which is great. So that's a one-to-one transfer. So you transfer a thousand points from built, you get a thousand Atmos points. Or you can also transfer points from Marriott. I really don't suggest this, and like you're just swimming in Marriott points because that is a three to one ratio. Meaning, let's say you transfer 3,000 Marriott points, you're only getting 1,000 Alaska Atmos miles. I think that's probably why Alaska has kind of gone unnoticed or flown under the radar, because our favorite banks that we're earning points with don't allow us to transfer our points there. Let's talk a little bit about how to earn belt points or about how to earn Atmos points in general. Well, how do we earn those belt points? Or how do we earn Atmos Points directly? There are a few ways to earn Atmos Points that I personally don't take the time to do. But just so you know that they're available, like they partner with different hotels or car rentals and even a dining program. You guys know a lot of loyalty programs do that. So it's a way to earn some points, but I like the I like the bigger buckets of points. I like to put lower effort in for more points. So I'm gonna talk about how we can do that. Of course, there is signing up for credit cards. That's always gonna be my number one go-to because the welcome offers are the best way to earn the most points at once. So that's confusing, right? Because this is Hawaiian and Alaska has merged to be atmos. Hawaiian cards are still somewhat available to sign up for it. It's more limited. From what I read in my research, it seems like there are some in-flight offers, like if you're flying on Hawaiian, but I also found a link via Bank of Hawaii that does take you to the Barclay website for a Hawaiian card application. I personally got those cards last fall when we weren't sure how long they were gonna be around for. So I know a lot of people did that too, and maybe that option is not available anymore. Here's the cool thing Alaska came out with three new brand new cards when this merge happened. So, quick side note here. You know, people say, Aren't you gonna run out of cards to sign up for? I mean, no, because look, they just came out with three brand new cards. These didn't even exist a year ago. So now you've got those three options. Two are personal and one is business. And of course, you earn either via the welcome offer, you earn putting spend on the card. And then, real quick, we'll chat about built built points, built transfers to Alaska at a one-to-one ratio. So, how do we earn those? Well, they have credit cards too. And guess what? Those didn't exist a year ago, right? No, they didn't. That's also like in the last few months. Okay, so that is kind of crazy. So built has credit cards, which you can earn points on through their credit cards. I do not have one yet. I have seriously considered getting the palladium, and it is on my list of cards to get. I mean, let me just wrap back to that. I have a list of cards I want to get, but they keep getting pushed back because these bonkers' offers keep coming out, and I keep going for these massive offers that are elevated for a limited time because I don't want them to pass me by. The palladium from Built is on my list to get, and I thought I would have it by now, but instead I've my husband and I have both signed up for other cards recently because of the elevated offers. So, okay. Anyway, so obviously you can earn it through, build cards. You can also, though, and this is the way that I am currently earning built points. It's the only way I'm currently earning built points. I have my Rackutin account set up to earn build points. And then those build points I can transfer over to Alaska. Plenty of credit card options there, plenty of spend options on those credit cards, and then a unique one, which is Rackutin and Built. When we're opening the new cards from Alaska, sometimes with the elevated offer, you are going to see companion fares. And there's two main types of these companion fares. And like I said, maybe part of your welcome offer, or it may be part of either you just have the card and you get it every anniversary, or a specific amount of spend you put and then you get one. But I want to talk about these in general because I do not think a lot of people know what they are, and I do not think people realize how incredibly valuable they are. The first one is the$99 companion fair, and it's basically$99 plus taxes, and it's valid on North American Economy Fair class on Hawaiian or Alaska. So the plane you're on either says Alaska on the side of it or it says Hawaiian on the side of it. There's some pros and cons to the$99 companion fare. The pros for this are you're saving$99. Who doesn't like that? The con is this is for paid flights only. This is not for award flights. Again, they're only usable on Alaska and Hawaiian flights, the actual carrier. They are only good in North America. They work for Hawaii, but you know, you're not going international with these. And they're not for premium seats, they're only for economy. So it's good. It's not my favorite. My favorite are these 25K and 100K global companion certificates. 25K is much more common. I have one from a welcome offer, and I am like super excited about it. They are very valuable. And let me tell you the pros and cons to this and how it works, because I didn't know much about these until recently. I feel like when you hear about them, you're gonna be as excited as I am if you have one. So the pros to these are that you use them with your award tickets. Yay, that's all I buy. Um, these are for Hawaiian and Alaska and partner flights. Yay, that's all I've been taking, is their partner flights. They can be used domestically or international. And the big one, they can be used for premium cabins too. Just to give you an overview about that, let's say I spend 55,000 points from Frankfurt to JFK on Condor Airlines, a partner of Alaska that you can book on Alaska. Then my companion, his would not be 55,000 points. It would be just 30,000 points. Which that's a really big deal because presumably this is a business class flight from Europe to the US or vice versa. It's a several thousand dollar flight, and you've just cut the points needed almost in half, which is pretty cool. As I mentioned, I have one of those 25k global companion certificates that I got as part of a welcome offer when I signed up for one of the cards in the fall. And it was part of my welcome offer. But now with the card, I will actually get one every single year on my anniversary. That makes that card a keeper for me. This is one of the things you'll think about when your year anniversary comes up. Like, how am I gonna get value for keeping that card? Well, this 25K global companion certificate is really valuable, in my opinion. It's important that I tell you real quick how to use it and how to find it because they've made it so simple. And man, that is a breath of fresh air. Here's what you're gonna do: you're gonna just go to your Alaska account, you're going to log in, and then you'll click on wallet, scroll down to where you see discounts and companion fares. Then you're gonna see a little box there that says use to book. And then once you click that and you start searching award flights for two people, it's actually gonna show you both fares. It's gonna show you your fare, which is the full fare, whatever that is. And then on a line underneath it, it's going to show you your companion's fare with 25,000 points off. So it's showing you, yeah, hey, there's two seats available. Yours is gonna be this price and theirs is gonna be that. I love it. They've made it like super simple. I don't have to hunt around this certificate. Once I say use it, it's showing me the actual points that I'm gonna pay for each one. The only thing I want to note here, actually, there's two things I want to note here. The first one, which is really cool, is that the card holder, like the person who has the global companion certificate, they don't even have to be traveling. So for example, my husband and I both got this exact same card. Yes. Hello, double miles. Hello, that's how valuable I think these are. We both got it. So he has one of these global companion certificates as well. But let's say he couldn't travel. He could book for me and my son, and we'd still be able to use it and get that 25,000 points off. Another thing that's important to note is you will need to pay your taxes and fees for that flight with the airline credit card. I forgot there is one more thing. I keep saying there's one more thing. There is one more thing, and this really, really, really surprised me because I know it's a good question you're gonna ask. These certificates do expire when you're from being awarded. But unlike most certificates out in the world, you don't actually have to take the travel by the expiration date. You just have to book it. I think those certificates are so cool and so valuable. Let's talk about all the places we want to fly with the points and their certificates and why, why these even matter. For me, it's all about the Alaska partner bookings because I don't live in an Alaska hub. I don't live in a Hawaiian Airlines hub. So the partner bookings is where I am focused. And I'm going to tell you some of them, quite a few of them actually, but this is not even the full list. This is just the list my brain goes to for the places we would want to fly: American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Fiji Airways, FNAR, Japan Airlines, Qatar, Air Tahiti Nui, Condor, Iceland Air, Starlux Airlines. And here's the thing: it's not just the partner list that's impressive, it's the actual low points cost of the flights. So Alaska uses distance-based and region-based award charts. And that is why there are so many sweet spots. Let's do some examples. So, for flights within the Americas region, they start at just 4,500 Alaska points for those one-way flights. For example, I can fly and I have flown from Denver to Phoenix for just 4,500 Alaska points in economy or 9,000 in their domestic first class. I mean, 4,500 points is incredible, right? Let's say I'm going a little further. So now we're talking about flights from 701 miles to 1,400 miles. Those can be booked for as little as 7,500 Alaska Airlines points at most points. Example for me, Denver, Chicago. Denver to Chicago for 7,500 points. Yeah, that's really good. Another example. So now we're going up to the next category: 1,401 to 2,100 miles. That's going to start at 12,500 points one way. That's Denver to Miami for me. That's a four-hour flight for less than 13,000 points. That's really, really good. So those are just some specific Denver examples because that's where I live, and these are the things that I've specifically gone to and looked at. Here's a real, real quick tip about exactly how I find these flights because searching can be tedious. But I have the paid version of seats.arrow. So I log into my seats.arrow, I click on the word explore, then I click on Alaska Atmos Awards, and then it's really broad and really wide. So I can just go show flights from North America to Europe, and then I can sort by economy, premium, business. I can put Denver in the search bar so it just shows me those, or I can do North America to North America, so I can see, well, how far can these Atmos points go? For me, this is the first place that I'm gonna start searching because mostly I'm chasing the deal and not the destination. So that's where I'm gonna start because I'm gonna look at these broad searches to find the best deals, but I want to give you some examples of how we've used them. We flew from LAX to Tahiti on Air Tahiti Nui business class. Those tickets were 60,000 points each way. That is one of the really cool bookables on Alaska Airlines. You go to the Alaska Airlines site and you can book Air Tahiti Nui. For Air Tahiti Nui, the economy flights start at 30,000 points one way. The premium economy 40,000. I feel like that's a really, really good deal for a premium economy. It's a long flight, it's like eight hours. And then for business class, it's 60,000 points each way. I will say they have gotten harder to find. I think I got lucky. It must have been a big drop or something. I really don't know because it all worked out for us. But that's a big one. If you want to go to French Polynesia, these points are fantastic. We also personally booked Condor Airlines from Frankfurt to JFK for 55,000 miles one way. That is a flight that costs thousands of dollars. We flew during the Christmas markets, during high season, and we were still able to find that for all three of us. Condor is a really cool one to get over to Europe because once you get to Frankfurt, there's a lot of different options. You can take trains to different places, or it's such a huge airport, you could take a cheap flight somewhere else. But what's really cool is that Condor has direct flights to Frankfurt from New York, Seattle, Boston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. So those are two that we've personally done with Alaska Miles. We've also done the Phoenix one. Such good deals. Let's talk about some of the other sweet spots that might be on your radar, and you can get a great deal when you're booking via this Atmos program. One-way flights in economy to Japan starting at 37,500 points. That's so good, right? And some of those are on Japan Airlines. I've flown Japan Airlines Business Class, but I've heard the economy is like one of the best economies you'll ever fly. And another great deal for getting over to Europe in business class is booking Airlingus via Alaska. And that starts at 45,000 points. And of course, of course, we can't forget Hawaii. You can get LAX over to Honolulu for as little as 12,500 points one way. There are more sweet spots than this. This was some of the ones I wanted to highlight, like short hops in the US, 4,500 points. That's incredible. Even the longer hops, I mean 12,500 points. If I was going on a four-hour flight all the way to Miami, that's still really good. Then we have the ones to Europe, business class at 55,000, 45,000 points, and Japan. Japan is notoriously hard to get to right now. So having that option via Alaska to book those economy flights is really nice. But I will say, in general, about Alaska, especially lately, they have some phantom availability. What is phantom availability, you say? It is availability that says it's there and it's really not. The one thing I like about Alaska is that I am earning my points with Alaska right now, right? I'm earning my points through welcome offers. I'm earning it through spends with specific airline cards. I'm not really transferring many points over there. I can transfer build, but because my points are already there, when I go to book something phantom, it just says, hey, it's not here. But if you are indeed transferring like your build points over, you may want to call Alaska first and ask them to verify that that space is really there so you don't get bit by that phantom bug. That is ugly and not fun. But on a more positive note, there's not going to be a fee if you need to change or cancel an Atmos award. Just make sure you change or cancel that flight before your departure time. Because if you don't, then of course those will be forfeited. But if you do it before that, then your miles are simply redeposited back into your account. However, there is a non-refundable partner award fee and it's just$12.50 each person each way when you are booking the partner airline. So not Alaska or not Hawaii. But what's really nice is if you have a specific card, specific airline card, that gets waived. So you can definitely see how there's a lot of positivities with holding certain airline cards. After having such good experiences booking some of their award flights, I am for sure a fan. And if it's something you haven't paid attention to, I would urge you to just see what the availability is for different routes you want to take and if it's something that could be of interest to you. Because for me, earning Alaska miles, earning at most points has for sure become a priority just because they're such good deals. I'm on that train and I want to stay on it and I want to book more things like I have in the past. Thank you so much for being here today. I've had so much fun chatting with you about Alaska and this program and why it's really one you don't want to ignore. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review and share with a friend. I appreciate it a ton. And I will chat with you next time. Thank you for listening to the Points and Miles Travel Chats podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review, give it a like, and share it with a friend that loves to travel. In the show notes, you'll find all the links and resources we talked about today. And if you're ready to take those next steps, don't miss my free PDF guide. It's been downloaded over 17,000 times. I also launched an online, self paced, free course a few months ago. You can join the over 1,800 students who are loving this resource. Of course, be sure to sign up for the weekly newsletter, and you'll never miss the latest strategies, stories, and offers. Until next time, here's to seeing the world on point.