Alaska has been taking up a lot of space in the blogosphere lately, and deservedly so. It has launched its new combined rewards program with Hawaiian Airlines, Atmos Rewards. At the same time, it also gave us two rebranded credit cards and the brand-new, ultra-premium Atmos Summit Visa Infinite.
Global Companion Awards (GCA) are “certificates” that can be used towards an award booking for a companion. They are a substantial perk of the Summit Visa, but one that we’ve never seen before. There is a 25K version that’s awarded after meeting the minimum spend and then after each anniversary, along with a 100K award that you get if you spend $60K on the card within your cardmember year.
Since GCAs are brand new to Alaska/Atmos, we wanted to quickly break down the details of what they are and how they can be used.\
Atmos Global Companion Awards
- Global 25K Companion Award: Every year on your Atmos Summit Visa account anniversary, you receive a Global 25K Companion Award, worth up to 25,000 points off a published award ticket. Currently, this is also part of the Summit Visa’s welcome offer.
- Global 100K Companion Award: When you spend $60,000 or more on purchases within your Summit Visa cardmember year, you will receive a Global 100K Companion Award, worth up to 100,000 points off a published award ticket.
- Global Companion Award Details:
- Cardholder does not need to be traveling: You can use your Global Companion Award to book for any two travelers of your choice.
- Applies to all flight awards bookable online, including partner awards: Global Companion Awards can be applied to any award booking available on AlaskaAir.com, including flights on Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, and oneworld® global partners. Award travel space is limited and subject to certain restrictions, including blackout dates and other capacity controls.
- You must pay award surcharges with your Atmos Rewards Summit card: Taxes, fees, and surcharges must be paid using your Summit Visa Infinite® card.
- No residual value: If the companion’s award fare is less than the Global Companion Award value (either 25,000 points or 100,000 points), the unused value is forfeited.
- Unlimited top-off: If the companion ticket costs more than the Global Companion Award value, you pay the additional points beyond the Global Companion Award value at checkout.
- Max one companion award per booking: You cannot combine multiple Global Companion Awards on a single booking.
- One year to book, longer to fly: You have one year from issuance to apply your Global Companion Award. You can book travel for later, as long as the booking happens before the expiration date.
- You can cancel and rebook: If you need to make a change to a booking before travel, you can cancel and get back the Global Companion Award (with its original expiration date) to use for another booking. If the Global Companion Award has expired by this time, you will not be able to use it.
Quick Thoughts
The 25K “standard” version should be very easy to use, either for a lower-cost round-trip itinerary or a higher-priced one-way. It makes sense that the 100K award is a perk for big spend, since you need to have a fair amount of Atmos Points in the first place to be able to use it.
For my wife and me, the 100K version will be easy to use on international business class travel, either to Asia or Europe from the West Coast. For everything but the longest itineraries, it will probably be necessary to book a round-trip ticket in order to maximize the GCA, since most one-way flights are going to be sub-100K points. That’s a slight downside for me, as I usually prefer to book a one-way award ticket for maximum flexibility, but it’s not the end of the world.
A couple of important logistical notes about using these awards:
- You can’t stack the 25K and 100K certificates. Only one award can be used per booking.
- You must pay any and all cash components with your Summit Visa. Although being a cardholder waives Alaska’s $12.50 per person partner booking fee, you’re still on the hook for government and carrier-imposed surcharges. Those are what need to be paid with the Summit Visa.
- You can use the awards to book a flight that takes place after the expiration date of the award. However, if you have to cancel that flight after the expiry, you won’t get the award back
I’m pretty excited about these new awards; they’re a terrific feature of the new card. They are about as flexible as a companion ticket gets. In fact, the cardholder doesn’t even need to be flying in order to use one. You could book a ticket for two friends or family members with your points and still be able to use the award.
I can count on booking several award tickets for my wife and me with Alaska Miles Atmos Points every year, and so for us, these certs are almost as good as points. It will be fun to see how people use them once they start to appear in the wild.
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
Hey Tim, how will the earning 5x on paid flights (if you select that option) work with the classic Alaska Companion Fare? Will you earn more points if you are the primary passenger (paid full price) vs being the companion passenger (who paid ~$123)?
That’s a great question. My assumption is that it would exactly as you said: the companion passenger would get 5x~$120 if earning based on revenue. That’s just my assumption, though, we’ll try and confirm it.
I’m also curious if it matters which account the Alaska Airlines Companion Fare posted to. If P2 earned the Companion Fare, but P1 is listed as the primary passenger, does that mean P1 would earn more points and status points than P2? See what you can find out. Thanks Tim 🙂
That one I do know. Regardless of whose code you use, the primary passenger is first listed on the ticket. So, you can book from your account, keep yourself as the primary and still use P2s code.
Good to know, that is what I thought.
I was looking at my 2024 AS paid flights and award tickets booked through AS to see if I should keep earning points via distance flown or switch to price paid. Most of my AS flights were booked with a Companion Fare, so that caused me to pause and try to figure out how AS would calculate points earned.
Are you staying with distance flown for 2026?
Tell me how many times you’ve redeemed 200K for two people in one go.
Speaking for myself, at least once per year. From the West Coast, that’s international business across either ocean.
I’m actually on a trip right now to Africa, and I booked two return flights from Zanzibar to Seattle on Condor for 110K each, or 220K total. Had I had the cert, I could’ve gotten my wife’s ticket for 10K.
I think these 100k GCA offers are excellent for Qatar. Since Alaska usually shows expanded availability priced at 150k miles—using the companion with a significant discount unlocks huge flexibility for Qatar redemptions and makes it much easier to take advantage of these awards.
That’s an interesting point that I hadn’t thought about. It would certainly take some of the sting out of those redemptions.
Hi Tim,
Thanks for the article, I have a quick question regarding the companion certificate, if I want to book Starlux airline biz class from SFO-TPE, they usually only have one available on a given date, does that mean the certificate cannot be used in this case? Do those “two” tickets have to be the same class(or even the same redemption rate)?
I would imagine there needs to be two seats available and most likely at the same price. I would be shocked if this is not the case
The problem is that you’re talking about Alaska tech, so you’re making a bet on the implementation restrictions put in by a team that’s understaffed and overwhelmed. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that they just said
a) it’s a discount code
b) you can only apply the code when there are exactly two people traveling
c) it just gives you a discount of either 25k or 100k on the whole reservation
And that’s it. But we’ll find out more when the first people get their cards and hit the spend – it’ll be sometime this coming week.
Hey Tim, what is FM’s RRV for the 25K GCA and 100k GCA? Also, do you think the RRV for Alaska miles / Atmos points needs to be reviewed / updated?
What happens if you book a ticket and then decide to change it rather than cancel it? Would this be allowed even after the expiration date?
@Tim, that’s a great question. Hopefully FM can find out the answer to this.
The Global Companion FAQ page says the following:
Once the Global Companion Award expires, any changes will result in the forfeiture of the discount.
Thanks for the write-up, Tim! What about using them on Condor, LATAM, Starlux, Aer Lingus etc? Do they mean “oneworld® + global partners”?
Following please
Great post- I had lots of questions on these.
I assume that AS or Mr ATMOS himself provided you guys with a fact sheet- or did I miss where this was spelled out online?
Keep it up, FM Team
This is all stuff that’s in the public T&C, FAQ and so on.
That said, if you know Mr Atmos, let him know that we’d love some fact sheets. 😉
Yes