Alaska and Hawaiian officially rolled out their new combined loyalty program yesterday called Atmos Rewards. In short, the program largely stays similar to what Alaska Mileage Plan had before. I’m not here to give you a summary — you can find that anywhere. Instead, I want to talk about one change in particular: the ability to choose how you earn miles. I don’t love it.
Oh sure, the overall reviews of the program have been glowing so far. Just take a look at some of the points and miles bloggers out there. One Mile at a Time calls it “innovative” and says it has “some cool changes.” View from the Wing says the “new program actually appears to be headed in the right direction.” The Points Guy starts its article with “It’s not often that loyalty programs are fully reborn, and it’s ever rarer for most of the changes to appear mostly positive without much in the way of a devaluation.” I could go on, but I won’t.
Yes, the general idea that redemptions aren’t devalued is nice… though it can change anytime. Also, people seem thrilled with the new fancy-pants premium credit card and the benefits involved. I get that. Oh and yes, there’s the complimentary day-of-departure upgrades on long-haul flights for top tier status members. That will never be me, so I don’t care.
As you all know, I have been on my first ever journey toward earning elite status this year, and after doing way too much math, I settled on Alaska. As if it wasn’t complicated enough before, Alaska has now decided to make it even tougher by requiring travelers to pick how they want to earn their points. The one thing I crave in an elite program more than anything is simplicity. Make my life easier and make the program simpler to understand. Alaska has done the opposite here under the guise of “choice.”
Today when you earn miles in Alaska’s program, there are three components to it. To make this easier, I will use the new Atmos nomenclature when I talk about this, points means redeemable miles and status points means elite qualifying miles. And to be clear, both points and status points earn the same when on Alaska. You earn based on distance flown, but there is a 500-mile minimum for all flights plus there is a bonus for bookings in higher classes of service. Here’s how it breaks down.
- Basic/Saver: earn 30% of miles flown
- Discounted Economy (M class or lower): earn 100% of miles flown
- More Expensive Economy (H or K class): earn 125% of miles flown
- Most Expensive Economy (Y or B class) or Discounted First (D or I class): earn 150% of miles flown
- More Expensive First (C class): earn 175% of miles flown
- Most Expensive First (J class): earn 200% of miles flown
The booking bonuses can get even more lucrative with partner bookings made via Alaska Airlines where, for example, in international First Class you earn 350% of miles flown. That’s a lot.
The point of this system is it gives you benefits no matter how you travel. If you only fly interisland, you’ll still get those 500 miles for every flight which boosts you up from the actual mileage. (For those playing at home, the Honolulu – Kahului flight is a mere 100 miles in reality.) If you fly long distances on cheap fares, you still get your distance-earning which has been a nice feature of the program. But if you buy really expensive fares, you get the multiplier which makes it even more lucrative.
Now, those three components have all been separated. Your choices are:
- Distance: Earn 1 point/status point for every mile flown – class of service bonuses and minimum segment earning are gone, though partner airlines not booked via Alaska will still use the old earning structure since they don’t have revenue data
- Revenue: Earn 5 points/status points for every dollar spent – again, partner airlines not booked via Alaska still use the old earning structure
- Segment: Earn 500 points/status points per segment flown
No, you don’t choose before each flight. Instead, you get to sweat out making a decision every year, or you can do nothing. If you select nothing when this goes into effect at the end of 2026, then you will automatically go on the revenue plan. Then you are able to make a change once every 365 days. When you make the change, it will only apply going forward. So let’s say you’re trying to qualify for status in calendar year 2027 and you started on the revenue plan. Halfway through, you realize you’ve made a grave mistake and want to do distance. You can switch, but everything you’ve flown in the first half of the year stays as revenue. Everything going forward is distance-based. No pressure.
In the end, there are two ways to look at this. One is you just don’t pay attention, go with revenue, and then hope it works. Two is you agonize over the right decision and hope you guess right. Either way, it will be all too easy to look backwards and have regrets.
I had lunch with a good friend this week who is a 1K and million miler on United. She couldn’t help but laugh at just how bad I was at this whole elite status thing. She’s not wrong. Part of it is that I just don’t want to care enough. I only did it this year as a fun topic to write about. But the issue for me has always been that this stuff is too complicated and the rewards aren’t worth enough for me to bother. I’m sure I’d feel differently if I flew 100,000 miles a year, but I don’t, and life as a lowly silver-level elite isn’t worth much when you can just get a credit card for some benefits and pay for the rest. I also live in a place where many airlines have robust service, so it makes even less sense to tie yourself to one. I know I’m not alone in this.
Atmos just makes things more complicated. I hate having the power of choice here, because there is no clear correct answer when you make the decision. There is too much room for regret.
I realize that those with top tier status (which will now take 135,000 miles instead of 100,000 to reach) are thrilled about the global upgrades. Those who care about playing the credit card game like this new premium card, and heck, I might get one eventually too. And others are just thrilled with the fact that the redemption side has not changed in this revamp. Other airlines have apparently set the bar for success exceedingly low.
Alaska was stuck in between a rock and a hard place. Revenue-based earning has become the standard, but there are many who have lavished praise on the airline for sticking with distance-based. And those important travelers in Hawaiʻi that regularly fly interisland? They need a segment-based option. The problem is that all of those things existed in the previous structure and you didn’t have to choose. Now, it’s just one more piece of complexity on top of everything else.
