Frequent Miler on the Air - Alaska’s intriguing premium rewards card | Coffee Break Ep68 | 8-26-25

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

Alaska's out with a new premium card: The Atmos™ Rewards Ascent Visa Signature® Card. In today's podcast episode, we'll talk about what we like and dislike about it.Alaska’s intriguing premium rewards card(00:31) - Atmos Rewards Summit Visa Infinite card quick detailsYou can read more about this card here: https://frequentmiler.com/alaska-summit-visa-premium-card-heres-the-details/(02:19) - Points sharing: Share your points with up to ten additional Atmos™ Rewards members.(06:00) - What's not to like? (the ~bad stuff)(07:31) - The good stuff...(10:23) - Nick's take: Is it right for him?(14:03) - Greg's take: Is it right for him?Visit https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe to get updated on in-depth points and miles content like this, and don’t forget to like and follow us on social media.Music Credit – Beach Walk by Unicorn Heads

This is a Voyescape podcast. You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world at voyescape.com. Welcome to Freakummiler's Coffee Break, where we focus on a single topic related to miles and points. And each coffee break is limited to 20 minutes or less or your money back. On today's coffee break, Alaska's intriguing premium rewards card. Alaska is out with a new premium card, which is conveniently named the Atmost Reward Summit Visa Infinite card. It just flows off your tongue.

And we're going to dive into what this card is all about, what we like and dislike about it, and whether or not Nick and I are sort of buyers for this card, are we going to get it and keep it ourselves? Will we ascend to the summit? That is the question. So let's just go over some of the quote-unquote basics. There's a lot of basics on this card for the basic parts and pieces that you need to know about. For starters, it has a $395 annual fee, so that makes it premium, maybe not quite ultra-premium in today's really high annual fee environment, but certainly more than a typical airline credit card.

The welcome bonus is pretty generous, 100,000 points and a 25K companion certificate after you spend $6,000 in the first 90 days. if you signed up for the waiting list when they offered that back in, I think, December-ish, then you get an additional 5,000 points if you apply through the link that you got in your email. So that's pretty good. The 25K companion certificate will talk about more later. It's a discount, essentially, on an award for a companion. So, again, we'll discuss that a little bit more, but it's a pretty good deal probably. Let's talk about point earning.

It earns three points per dollar on Alaska and Hawaiian Airlines, of course, 3X on dining. 3x on foreign purchases. That's kind of an interesting, unique one. We'll discuss that too, I'm sure. And you can pay rent through built rewards and earn your 3x on that also, though you will pay a 3% fee if you pay your rent via built on any credit card, essentially apart from a built card. And you'll earn 1x everywhere else. So those are your 3x bonus categories. Everything else is one. And you'll learn a 10% rewards bonus and the points you earn from your purchases every year if you have a Bank of America account, an eligible Bank of America account. So I guess technically it earns like sort of 1.1 mile per dollar spent everywhere.

And I guess you could look at it as 3.3 in the 3x categories if you have an eligible Bank of America checking savings account, I believe. One of the benefits is that you'll be able to share points with up to, I think it's, what is it, 10 additional people. So you can share your points. They can give you points. You can give them points. That's a nice little feature that we've seen for a long time in the Hawaiian cards, but that's new for an Alaska card.

And it's, again, it's 10 additional people that you have to kind of set up your pool with. So it's not something where you can send points to anybody, but 10 people is probably enough of a pool for most folks. You won't pay the partner award booking fees. So Alaska charges $12.50 for a partner award, and that's nonrefundable. But if you have this card, you won't have to pay that nonrefundable partner award fee. so that'll be a nice savings for those who book a lot of awards through Alaska. It comes with an annual Global 25K Companion Award every year at account anniversary. I mentioned that a few moments ago, so that'll give you 25,000 points off of the Companions Award Fair.

You can top that off and add more points if you're booking a more expensive award. If you spend $60,000 in an account year, then you'll earn an additional companion award that's good for up to 100,000 points off of your Companions Award. And again, you could top that off with additional points beyond that. You'll get a 10,000 point boost towards elite status every anniversary year, including, I believe, in the year you get approved. Within a few weeks, you're said to get the 10,000 status points. That'll give you a boost towards elite status.

And then you'll earn an additional one status point per $2 spent on the card, which is a slightly better rate than the other Alaska and Hawaiian cards. Those are in one status point for every $3 spent. this only requires $2 spent to earn a status point. So that'll make your path a little bit easier. When you're flying Alaska, you'll get a free check bag for you and up to six other people and most of the other things you'd probably expect with a premium airline card, things like preferred boarding, a couple of Wi-Fi passes,

though Alaska's expected to eventually make that complimentary for members in general, I believe. The interesting benefit here is a $50 instant travel delay credit. If you have your, if your flight is canceled or you experience a delay of two hours or more, you'll get a $50 instant travel delay credit where you'll be able to spend 50 bucks at a wide range of different merchants. So think like a restaurant or a store within the airport, of course, if you need to buy something or even, I think, department stores and lots of other places qualify. So if you have to go back to your hotel and you need to buy a clean set of clothes or something, this will potentially give you $50 off of that anyway. You get two lounge passes per quarter for Alaska lounges, so you visit twice per quarter and get an exclusive lounge bar program benefit where every time you visit an Alaska lounge, whether with one of those two quarterly visits or if you get access because you're flying internationally in a premium cabin or you have a membership, whatever it may be, then you'll get a complimentary signature cocktail or elevated bar offering up to two. each time you visit it an Alaska lounge, whatever those mean. And then it has most of the other typical premium card benefits like your credit for TSA pre-check or global entry. It's got some

rental card benefits with Avis National Hertz. And it includes primary auto CDW, so collision damage waiver. Travel protections, which is nice to see on an airline card. You have six-hour trip delay coverage. So if your trip is delayed by six hours or more, you get to take advantage of that. That's pretty good. Purchase protection, stuff that you would generally expect on a card that costs $400 a year. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So a lot of good sounding stuff there. Let me talk briefly about what's not to like. First of all, the 3x categories are very interesting, especially international spend, but there's not many. So, you know, most spend with this card outside of dining. And if you're in the U.S., outside of dining, you're just earning one X for spend. So that's in today's

environment with cards, that's not very good. The limited lounge visits, that's unusual for a premium card. You know, I can't think of a premium card that, an airline's premium card that doesn't offer a lot more than just two per quarter when they offer lounge visits at all on the on the flip side, that might be good for those of us who don't fly Alaska that much because maybe it'll prevent overcrowding or at least limit the overcrowding. And so maybe that's a good thing. Finally, what I think is probably the biggest downside of this overall is that the biggest like automatic perk of this card is the 25,000 point companion certificate. And if you never book awards with two people, you know, for two people, that might be completely lost on you,

the value of that certificate. So those are some negatives, but there's a lot of good, a lot of good here. So I'm going to cover it sort of based on who you might be. So if you're a Alaska frequent flyer, obviously you're going to like getting the standard stuff like free check bag and priority boarding. But maybe you already have a $95 Alaska Card and get those things. So maybe you don't care that much about those. But you're also getting things like the Wi-Fi passes, same-day change fee waiver, and the $50 Instant Travel to Lake Credit. So those are all decent perks, you know, if not extraordinary. They're certainly decent for frequent flyers. But there's also a lot to like for those who don't fly Alaska often, but like using their rewards program.

So that's, I would solidly fit in there. The ability to earn 3X for all international spend could be big for some people who spend a lot of money and time outside of the U.S. The ability to share points. I'm really glad to see that we'll be able to keep doing that even if the Hawaiian Airlines cards ever go away. In the Global Companion Awards, if you do, often book award flights using Alaska miles, or now it's at most rewards points for two people, then those companion awards, you know, are basically almost as good as the number of points that they're valued at under some, as long as you're booking awards that cost that much or more. Then finally, there's benefits too for people who might be not be Alaska

your frequent flyers, not even all that interested in the rewards program as far as like booking awards with the points. But for those who just want one world elite status, you've got things like the 10,000 point status boost each year and you earn one status point per $2. And so you could spend your way to Alaska but also one world elite status. And the reason one world is interesting is maybe you fly for example British airways all the time or Japan airlines whatever at certain tiers of elite status you'll you'll get into lounges for example so you might be flying economy and be able to go into the business class lounge or if you have a higher level of one world status you might be flying business class

and be able to get into the first class lounge which which is which can be really really nice depending on where you are. So there's a lot to like for different sort of pockets of people. Okay. All right. So that's the big overview of the card, the good and the bad. Let's now turn it over. Nick, is this right for you?

Are you going to get the card? And do you think you'll keep it if you do? I would really like to have this card. So I want it, yes. And the reason is somewhat what you were just talking about about the one world benefits. So I'm intrigued by the ability to spend towards one world status because I'm much more likely to fly American domestically than Alaska. Alaska doesn't serve my home airport. And American does have good service, a fair amount of service out of my local home airport. And so as much as I don't

really enjoy flying American airlines, it does make sense sometimes. And with One World Sapphire or higher, actually with Alaska Gold, I think this is just a partnership between Alaska and American with Alaska, or higher, you get main cabin extra seats at booking. And so that's intriguing to me because I know I can get some of those benefits when I'm flying on American Airlines. And so with a $60,000 spend threshold. Now, let me back up and say, I would not find this compelling if it meant putting spend on this card instead of opening other cards. If I had to choose, $60,000 in spend when I'm about to talk about the big spend bonus here, is a lot of spent. And for most people, you'd be much better off directing that spend towards three or four or six or eight different welcome offers and earning

lots and lots of miles and points. If you have the capacity to spend the $60,000 on this card and also whatever other cards it is that you'd like to open every year, then I think it becomes pretty interesting because you'd earn $30,000 status points from that $60K spend plus the $10,000 point boost. So you'll right there be at the $40,000 you need for gold status, which is one world sapphire. get you into the business class lounges when flying one world. Of course, you get the 60,000 points for spend, even if you're only spending it one X, and you'll get the 100K companion certificate. And that 100K companion certificate, Greg's made good points. It's a little tricky because

there aren't a lot of places where you're going to spend 100K if you're looking at saver awards primarily unless you're booking round trip. And I don't usually book round trip awards. So this would force me into looking for some more round trip opportunities. That said, being a the East Coast. There's a lot of good ways to fly to Europe. My wife's ticket could be free. We do tend to go to Europe every year. It could be free or close to it anyway with Alaska's award chart as things stand. So I think I'd find that really valuable. So all of those things really appeal to me. I would find it very easy to use the annual 25K companion certificate and get nearly the annual fees worth out of that. So overall, I find the card pretty compelling and

pretty interesting. And there was one other thing regarding the status that has already escaped me, so I can't even remember what it was that I wanted to say. But oh, I know one other point I wanted to make that a reader made recently was that the 3x foreign purchases can be great for expats, people who live overseas. And that's not me. We do travel overseas a fair amount, though a lot of the overseas spend is on travel where we could already earn 3x with other cards. We're not spending a ton on things that we couldn't already earn 3x or better on. It's usually dining and hotels and things like that. But for somebody who lives overseas, you got groceries and whatever other expenses you can pay. Though it'll depend whether or not you have the capacity to pay the bill in

U.S. dollars. A reader made the point that if you get paid in a foreign currency, it may be difficult for you to convert back to U.S. dollars and pay your bill. And that would be true across all of the U.S. credit cards, if that's the case for you. So there's some people that'll work for and some people it won't. Personally, I'm pretty excited about it. What about you, Greg? Are you getting this card? Yeah, well, I'm trying. I'm still in the process of the reconsideration calls. So I applied and was instantly denied. And after several phone calls to Bank of America, I finally figured out that it's the darn hyphen in my last name that mess things up. So Alaska does not storm. my name with a hyphen. It just runs my last name all together. So instead of Daviskeen,

it looks like Daviscian. And in order to get the 5K extra points, I had to apply through that email link, which meant I had to verify my name in order to qualify for that 5K. And so I tried my name with the hyphen. I tried it with a space. It wouldn't take it anyway except all run together. Long way of saying, so Bank of America, behind the created a new profile for me, and they didn't like what they saw in that new profile. They created a new profile for Greg DeViskin. Right, right. So in that new profile, they knew about all my, you know, what they could see in my credit

report of all the inquiries that I've had lately and things, but they didn't know about my business that I do with Bank of America, which, you know, I have a checking account. I've got a lot. I've got money with Merrill Edge. So, you know, because I have platinum preferred honors, whatever it's called. So all of that should be taken into account. It wasn't initially. So I'm still waiting for a decision on that.

But long way of saying, so I do want the card, not just for the welcome bonus. I do want it long term. Here's the way I'm thinking about it is that the 25K companion certificate that you get each year, I see that as I wouldn't buy it for $395. but I see it as sort of justifying the 390 like the card's not costing me that much because I

get this 25K thing that I think I'll easily use each year and I'll save 25,000 Alaska miles each time I use it so that's so that's really good and so I feel like what I'm getting with this kind of automatically for free-ish

you know given those those qualifications I mentioned are things like waived award booking fees, which means now I can more freely use Alaska miles to book, you know, backup positioning flights or just-in-case flights, like I see an award available to wherever, but I'm not really sure I'm going to take it. I could right now, of course, book that, but knowing that I'm giving up $12.50 per passenger per direction, it'd be nice just not even to have to think about that. And preserving the ability to move points around is also, I think, a really nice to have.

So anyway, so these aren't like big, big wins by any stretch of the imagination. But at the same time, I feel comfortable that I'll get at least the $3.95 value out of the card that it's worth keeping. and, you know, the welcome modus makes it worth getting regardless. But whether it's worth keeping, I think those things will make it worth keeping. Then a future question is, do I spend towards the 100K, do I try to spend 60K a year on the card? That's a whole other analysis. I could see doing it, but I haven't figured out yet whether that's a path that I really want to take or not. that makes sense and i think the thing that is probably at the heart of what both of we both of us have

felt about this card but having yet said is that i think we both appreciate that this is not a coupon book full of things that you need to track and follow that one 25k certificate will be relatively easy for both of us to put to use each year and then we don't really have to worry about too much more else right because we're going to feel like we've gotten most of the value back and then you know a few backup flights where we don't have to lose that $12.50 and this thing will pretty easily pay for itself without a lot of effort. And I think that's what makes this card special amongst premium cards today. Totally agree. Don't forget. If you've enjoyed this and you'd like to get on our email list, you want to go to frequentmiler.com slash subscribe to join our email list, follow us on all the various

social media, and check out our frequent mile around the air episodes dropping every Friday. Hi, I'm David Brody, co-host of the Travelintend 10 podcast. Together, myself and my co-host, Tim Johnson have traveled to over 150 countries around the world and all seven continents. Now we're sharing our favorite places, some of our best tips and experiences from all around the world in just 10 minutes on travel and 10. Join us at voyagecape.com. I'm Pauline Fromer. I've spent most of my life writing, talking, and thinking about travel, not just where to go,

but how to go in a way that's meaningful. On the Frommers Travel Show, we explore the trends, people, and ideas shaping how we see the world. If you care about the why, as much as the where, I hope you'll join me. You can find new episodes weekly at voyescape.com.