Alaska is in the midst of combining its rewards program with Hawaiian Airlines, in the process rebranding it from Mileage Plan to the unfortunate moniker, “Atmos Rewards.” As part of the change to Atmos, Alaska is rejiggering its Bank of America credit card portfolio. The current Visa Signature card will be renamed the “Atmos Ascent,” and there will be a new premium card, the “Summit Visa.” Get it? First, you’re on the Ascent, then you hit the Summit!
Anyway, many of the details about the Summit Visa card were accidentally released last week, and it turns out that it will probably be appealing for a lot of folks, especially with what’s expected to be a 100K inaugural welcome offer.
We haven’t seen any details about the Ascent card yet, outside of the name. However, today we received a screenshot from reader N.G.. In the Alaska app, they saw a banner for the new Ascent card, but when they clicked through, it went to the application page for the current 50,000-mile public offer for the Visa Signature (note that we have a 65K offer on our Best Offers page).
However, the ad, complete with card art, showed a bonus of 80,000 points.
Quick Thoughts
After publishing our post about the $395/year Summit Visa, we’ve received a lot of questions about the Visa Signature/Ascent card, mostly along the lines of, “Should I apply for this card now?”
We anticipated that the rebrand would come with an increased welcome offer, and it looks like that’s the case. 80,000 points is a massive haul for the Alaska Visa, and a probable improvement over the current 65K version.
However, we don’t know anything else about the card or what the minimum spend will be. I can’t imagine Alaska taking away the companion fare that the card earns after $6K spend per year, but the current version offers that as part of the welcome offer, while there’s no indication that the new one does. We also don’t know whether or not the annual fee will increase, or if there will be any changes in benefits, for good or for ill.
On the surface, it’s a no-brainer to wait for the 80K offer, and indeed, I probably would if I were interested in applying for it. Getting an extra 15,000 points would be worth the risk that there may not be a companion fare on approval for the new card. That said, some may feel differently, and if you want to be certain that you’re going to get a first-year companion fare, it may be worth lobbing in an application now.
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I joined the waitlist and received an even bigger SUB for 100K after 6k spend within 90 days.
There’s also a 5k bonus for signing up and a 25k companion certificate.
My question now is. Since I have the Alaska Visa Signature card for years now. Can I apply for the Atmos Rewards card, or do I need to cancel the Alaska card first.
It did say that you will get the new atmos card when your card renews, so I’m assuming no.
I’d love to know if I can have both or just cancel the Alaska card first.
Should I open Alaska card and this one ?
Applications are live. 80k points and companion fare for 4k spend in 120 days on the Ascent and 100k points and 25k global companion award for 6k spend on Summit within first 90 days. 25k global companion award is a discount.
I dived right in and got approved instantly. Fwiw I have a banking relationship with BOA.
Taking my business from Delta to AS. SkyMiles is just a bunch of out of touch morons nowadays.
I’ll wait for the details but it seems like a pretty lame proposition. If the “global” companion award can’t be topped off it’s less valuable than the companion fare. If the companion fare has never been mentioned in ANY offer I don’t know why one would assume it’s included.
I get free wifi from T-Mobile so that benefit isn’t really useful. The quarterly lounge passes don’t work well for either frequent flyers who will get to use the lounges on one or two flights per quarter or the infrequent flyers who will use it on one or two flights per year. BofA and Alaska screwed the pooch on this one and it will be a flop as they didn’t think about their audience
And 80k for $6k spend is pretty weak. I was super excited when I heard about this months ago but… Yeah, no. I think I’ll get the ascent for the miles and cancel next year. At least I got 500 miles for getting on the list.
80k is for the Ascent, the Summit (the one you got on the list for) will be 100k.
I will probably still get it as I want more Alaska points and they aren’t the easiest to come by especially when you didn’t already have MR points you could funnel through Hawaiian…but 80k if the spend is 6k…sheesh, I really hope it goes up to 100k like the employee leak. I mean 80k is nice and again, they’re hard to come by, but hopefully they reduce the spend if 80k is all you get. (the regular card had 75k from an in flight offer just recently because I got my second personal card on that offer…so that’s why I want to see 100k on a card that costs $400 annual fee)
Why is everyone confusing these two cards? 80k is for the Ascent. The Summit (the premium one) will be 100k.
Sorry for misreading the post and conflating the two cards, I really hope it didn’t ruin your day. I appreciate the correction. I’ll read closer before commenting next time .
Now comparing an 80k vs 100k offer for a $400 fee…the 100k offer isn’t big enough imo…or the 80k is a smoking deal.
Lol. I’ll be ok. No hard feelings. You might be right that the 100k offer doesn’t seem high enough in comparison. Have a good one!
I think 100K on $6K spend in 3 months is still sheesh offer. I was hoping 100K on $4/5K in 3 months.
Hopefully the Alaska miles won’t be worth “Atmos” one cent…
They’ll be worth a lot more, you just won’t be able to redeem any of them.
“won’t be able to redeem any of them” Agree 100! Never been able to redeem JAL award ticket, what a crock.
But, the name is better than Bonvoy.
By the way, Atmos is also the name of a Dolby Labs surround sound system.
I just want to know if I’ll start earning miles, er points, from my Atmos Energy monthly payments. I’d feel better if the C-suite at Atmos Energy were actually running the company instead of Ben Minicucci destroying it.
When in August is coming out?
An announcement said the new loyalty program would be unveiled on August 20th. It is reasonable to suspect the new cards would also be unveiled on that date.
NOt a fan of Bof A at all would never have a credit card with them again.
Why please?
I. Went in to pay a credit card balance of. $.50 ( 50 cents) with 2 quarters and they would not take it because of money laundering ??? They wanted a check only. Nuts. That and a few other incidents !!
Every time that I’m on the BOA website, I feel like I’ve been transported back to the 1990s internet.
This
Good for you for avoiding the Atmos puns. I assume you didn’t want to create a bad Atmos-fear.
That’s something, Atleas.
I laughed at this more than I would like to Atmit.
I wonder what the business card will be branded as.
Do we know for sure there will be a business card rebrand?
Yes, in some fashion. Mileage Plan will now be Atmos, so that will require a rebrand from the Alaska Mileage Plan Visa Signature to Atmos Rewards Atleas Business card, or whatever it’s going to be called.
I wonder what the clowns at Skymiles will drum up to try to convince people their cards are delusionally superior.
Think able to get current visa signature card now, and when the ascent is released get that one?
Wondering the same!
As long as you don’t run afoul of BofA frequency rules, it would be fine. You may have to skip the initial increased bonuses on Atmos if you do that.
good ol’ seattle-area cleverness.
atmos name is so bad, I may just cancel my alaska card because of it. Embarassing.
Is Atmos worse then Bonvoy?
Is the Hawaiian card going away? It gets 2 free bags, not just one.
Barclays announced this morning that the Hawaiian card will now earn on Alaska flights. They’ve said it will stay around. Barclays is much more technologically advanced that Bank of America.