Alaska Airlines has been at the tip of our tongue quite a bit lately, primarily due to its merger with Hawaiian Airlines and some broadly positive changes to its renamed award program, Atmos Rewards.
However, many people apparently don’t realize that you can actually refer friends and family to the personal Atmos Ascent Card (the business card is excluded). Each referral currently earns 10,000 points, and you can earn up to a maximum of 250,000 points per calendar year.
The reason why many folks probably don’t know about it is that there’s no way to generate a referral link in your Bank of America account. Instead, you have to go through Alaska.
How to refer people to the Atmos Ascent card
Unfortunately, Alaska and Bank of America don’t make it easy to refer friends to the Atmos Ascent, and there’s currently no way to generate a shareable link to do it. Instead, you have to go to the Alaska website and have them send an email.
First, go to this link (you can also find it in your account overview here). In a shout-out to 2010, you have to manually enter your details and the details of each person that you want to refer in order to generate referrals. Alaska then sends an email to each person on your behalf, inviting them to apply.
Quick Thoughts
This is one of the most bizarre referral processes in the industry. My assumption is that BOA doesn’t have the backend to support referrals on the Atmos card – and/or doesn’t want to develop it. So, this is Alaska’s workaround.
It’s important to note that the referral offer won’t always match the best public offer (which you can always find on our Best Offers Page here), as there’s usually an in-flight version of the public offer which tacks on an additional 5,000 miles.
That said, folks in the same household may often do better by using a referral…the public offer + the 10K referral miles will usually beat whatever the current inflight haul is.
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I submitted 3 referrals and got a message back from BofA with a link to check the referral status. when I go to the page it says all 3 are “Scrubbed: Number of referrals on the marketing suppression list”!!!! and no emails were sent to the people I referred. It seems like if my referral have unsubscribed from BofA’s marketing lists, they will not get the referral which is crazy. I am hoping that this is a bug that will be fixed.
This referral doesn’t work for me as of 9/11/2025. Does it still work for you?
@Tim, is there a way to use this for the Atmos Summit card or is it only available for the Ascent $95 card?
So anybody with an Atmos Rewards account, with no need to even be a cardholder, can refer?!
Am I understanding this correctly?
Has anyone gotten the referral recently? Had one sent to me, but it never showed up.
I’ve sent referrals to people and not all of them show up. Your email may be blocked by spam so you would have to use another email.
Thank you, I was able to get one through to another email address and was approved for the card.
Does not work for SUMMIT card only the $95 card.
Tiim does it again
I am baffled how BofA website and tech is so bad. 1999 called and wants their technology back already! Seriously how hard is it, especially with AI, to generate a usable UI/UX. Their CTO needs to be fired immediately.
Atmos Summit card not available for referral?
Would be great to get the 10K referral bonus and the 5K early sign-up bonus. if there is a way to score both of those
Was wondering the same thing. Can you only send a referral for the Ascent card? Seems weird.
Article written in Jan 2025. Now July 2025 and the Referral link is no longer showing in the Financial Partners page. Bummer. Is it seasonal ? Or have then nuked it for good ?
Thank you so much for writing this! I’ve struggled with this multiple times…
That said…now it seems to be broken! Whether I’m logged in or not, the page you linked doesn’t seem to have the referral link on it anymore…
The even more frustrating part is this page on Alaska’s site still references the referral offer, and links to that same page you did…which doesn’t have it on it anymore:
https://www.alaskaair.com/content/mileage-plan/use-miles/deals
Argh! Curse you, Bank of America!
I have a question. I finally found the link for “refer a friend” but when you click on the link it takes me to the application only and there is nowhere to ask for a referral email or any kind of referral link
I like Alaska Airlines…but I hate BoA. Their online and banking user interface is horrible. They probably built their site in 1993 with 3 interns and never changed it since. The only reason I don’t cancel my Alaska card is because it’s my oldest card.
Couldnt agree more. The BOA website is the absolute worst. For years I didnt sign up for another card casue I hated it so much. But recently bit the bullet and got a AS card….been pulling my hair out trying to get the website to be functional.
Can you refer for the business card as well?
Not at this time.
Since this referral originates from Alaska Airlines itself, not BoA, are we able to generate referrals if we have an Alaska Airlines account but are not currently a cardholder? Might be wishful thinking, but figured it was worth asking…
I too have an Alaska Airlines Mileage Account and recently cancelled my Credit Card. Wanted to suggest my wife to apply for the Card and I had this same question if I would get 10,000 referral miles if I refer her from my Alaska Airlines Mileage Account
No, unfortunately, you have to be a personal Alaska cardholder.