This is the August 24, 2025 edition of the LazyPoints Weekly newsletter. It goes out by email every Sunday at 8:00 a.m. Pacific–unless I oversleep–and is archived here on the blog. Want it straight to your inbox each week? Sign up here.
I’ve been on the Alaska Airlines bandwagon for a while now, so I anxiously awaited the news of their refreshed frequent flyer program, combining the former Alaska Mileage Plan with Hawaiian Airlines’ HawaiianMiles, and the release of their long-awaited premium card. And woof—they did not disappoint. The news was so big that I wrote a longer breakdown yesterday—check out that post if you want the full deep dive.
But here’s the big picture:
Everything great about Alaska is still here. Unchanged: their generous award chart, milestone rewards, status and miles based on distance flown, elite status at just 20k qualifying points, all the benefits from the existing credit cards, the tie-in with Bilt, and free tickets for your wine.
There are some cosmetic changes. Mileage Plan and HawaiianMiles are now Atmos. Miles are now points. Elite Qualifying Miles are now “status points.” MVP and Pualani Gold are now Atmos Silver. And so on.
But there are some significant, meaningful—and overwhelmingly positive—changes. While you can still earn miles and status based on distance flown, you can also choose to earn based on segments flown or spending, depending on which is most favorable to you; you can also change your election once per year. Alaska’s credit cards, especially the new premium Summit (more on that below) now offer a fast-track to status. In a first for US airlines, top-tier elites can even get upgrades to lie-flat business class seats on international flights (although, in one negative change, that status is getting slightly harder to reach). And Atmos announced plans to add special benefits for “communities,” focused on groups like expats and traveling families.
Finally, there’s the new $395-fee Summit card, which is already in my wallet and working hard. It is launching with an outrageous bonus: 100k Atmos points plus a 25k discount on a companion award, plus 5,000 bonus points if you signed up for the waitlist and apply via the link Alaska should have sent you. That’s a minimum of 135k points after meeting the spending requirements–and from most of the US, 150k points will be enough for a trip for two to Japan. And if you regularly fly award tickets with a companion, the 25k annual companion discount just about covers the annual fee, before even considering the card’s other, mostly Alaska-specific, benefits, like waived partner award booking fees, automatic compensation for delays, and free checked bags. And there’s more:
The card’s 10,000-point annual status point boost basically confers automatic elite status if you take one award flight covering 10k miles. The card also earns 1 status point per $2 spent, making it very easy to hit basic status.
The card is an earnings monster, earning 3x points per dollar on dining (unheard of for a major US airline card), 3x on foreign purchases (unheard of in general), and even 3x on rent via Bilt (albeit with a 3% transaction fee).
You can get a 10% points bonus just by opening a Bank of America account (there are a few options to do this with no fees–I went for the SafeBalance account with a $500 deposit)
If you spend (a whopping) $60,000 on the card, you’ll get another companion discount worth up to 100k. If you redeem two companion awards in one year with the same companion, that person could also get elite status if they covered 20k miles on their award flights with you.
Those are just the highlights! You can read more (a lot more) here.
This Week in the Blog 📝
We’re continuing our short series on how to choose your next credit card. In this week’s episode: choosing your core cards. These are a couple essentials that will be mainstays in your wallet and start earning you points long term while you build out your wallet with other cards when the timing is right.
Quick Points of the Week ⚡
Special offers ✨
Get airline elite status for $69… on Frontier. It comes with free seat assignments and a carry-on bag, upgrade potential, priority boarding, no change or cancellation fees, and more. Might be useful? (OMAAT)
Giveaways 🎟️
Miles for goals? Certain West Coast residents can get Atmos points when their local soccer team scores a goal. (FrequentMiler)
AA giving away World Cup Final tickets. And a round trip flight, and a hotel stay. Enter and see rules and details here.
New features 🆕
AI flight deals now live on Google Flights. You can now use Google’s AI as your own travel agent to help you book your next trip. (Thrifty Traveler)
Biometric security gates for CLEAR members. Have CLEAR+ (maybe through a credit card)? By the end of the month, you’ll be able to roll straight through to security in Atlanta, Washington (DCA), and Seattle without seeing a CLEAR employee or TSA agent, thanks to biometric “eGates.” (Axios)
Free fast Wi-Fi coming to Alaska next year. As if *gestures at top of newsletter* wasn’t enough. (Alaska)
Hacks 👨💻
Double dip calendar year credits. View From the Wing points out that the new Citi Strata Elite features several calendar-year credits, so if you get the card by the end of the year, you can use them by the end of 2025, and then again once January rolls around. This trick works for a number of cards with calendar-year credits. (VFTW)
Rumors 👀
Amex Platinum hotel credit to triple? The Amex Platinum currently offers a $200 annual credit towards Amex’s fancy Fine Hotels and Resorts program. That may be set to increase to two $300 credits when the card is refreshed. (Thrifty Traveler)
Amex to offer a welcome bonus tracker? This would be a major convenience. (FrequentMiler)
Recommended 👍
Mesa card experience. Gary from View from the Wing discusses his experience with the Mesa card, including its bonus on daycare and (apparently) taxes. (VFTW)
Fun 👻
Bilt low-key has a vertical-video sitcom. Seriously. (Morning Brew)
Vote on Delta’s next destination. The airline is letting SkyMiles members vote on which of three European island destinations–Sardinia, Malta, or Ibiza–should feature on its 2026 route map. Vote between August 25th and 29th in the map. (Delta)
Sign-up bonus of the Week 🎯
Oof—where to start this week?
The highlight of the week is obviously the 100k points + 25k-pt companion certificate on the new Alaska Atmos Summit card. I’m obviously a huge fan. With flights to Asia and Europe available for 75k points round trip from most of the U.S., the sign-up bonus plus required spending should just about cover a round-trip adventure for two, all on its own. Well worth the $395, even if it isn’t a long-term keeper for you. (There are also great offers on lower-tier Atmos/Hawaiian cards, but the offers aren’t quite at peak (unless maybe you get 85k), and the cards offer questionable value for the fee if you’re not a frequent flyer.)
Next up, the AA Aviator Red card can be had with a 70k-mile welcome bonus after making just a single purchase. Rumor has it that the AA double dip may finally be coming to an end, so this might be your final chance to rack up those AA miles. The Citi AA card also currently has an 80k offer–and, thanks to the lack of spending requirement on the Aviator offer, you can get both with a single spending requirement.
If that’s not enough for you, Chase replaced the best-ever Chase Sapphire Reserve offer with a new one: 125,000 points after spending $6,000 in 3 months. Looks like the days of a standard 60k-point welcome offer might be gone. The previous offer (100k points plus a $500 travel credit) presented more value for more frugal travelers, but the points-only offer might be better for flexibility and stretching points for luxury redemptions. If you missed out on the last one, this is an excellent consolation prize.
Other great current bonuses
80k on the Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select (our take)
100k on the Citi Strata Elite in-branch (or scour Reddit) (our take)
75k miles on the Chase Sapphire Preferred (our hot take 🔥)
100k points on Southwest Credit Cards (our take)
$300 (kind of) on Capital One no-fee cards (our take)
Enjoy the weekend! 🦥
Hope you have a travel buddy for all these Atmos benefits. Send them this post and invite to sign up to LazyPoints Weekly for the biggest Atmos news and more.