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 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)
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 will tell why I will NEVER deal with BofA. After the Jan 6th fiasco, the Fed govt asked credit card companies to give them purchase information for an area around D.C. so they could see who was “there”. Most all said “Not without a warrant”…BofA gave the Feds the personnel information on people who used the card in the area. After confirming that, I called BofA and cancelled both of my existing Alaska Airlines Visa cards and got a USAA Visa.
Every time that I’m on the BOA website, I feel like I’ve been transported back to the 1990s internet.
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 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.
New card… can we apply for this again?
We’ll have to see what the terms say. BOA normally is pretty lax around repeat buyers, although some cards have language that you “may” not be eligible if you’ve either opened or closed the same card within the previous 24 months. Fairly common for folks who want them to have multiple Alaska cards, though. We have four in our household.