We’ll mark this as “developing” for now, as it remains to be seen whether this is a massive devaluation, or just a glitch.
Alaska Atmos Rewards greatly increases award costs
The Alaska Atmos Rewards program publishes award charts, a practice that many of us appreciate, thanks to the transparency it provides. The award charts show the “starting at” price when redeeming points, but the intent is that for travel on partner airlines, that’s the pricing that should apply if there’s saver award space (you’ll sometimes find higher priced awards, for situations where there’s non-saver availability).
However, something very strange is going on at the moment, whereby many partner awards with connections have higher pricing than you’d expect (this was flagged on FlyerTalk). Let me explain with a couple of examples. Below is Atmos Rewards’ Europe, Middle East, and Africa award chart, which is relevant for this example.
For example, if you want to fly from Dallas (DFW) to Helsinki (HEL) on Finnair, you’ll find pricing is 35,000 points in economy, or 70,000 points in business class, which is what you’d expect, based on the distance of 5,001-7,000 miles.
If you add a connection to Stockholm (ARN) to the same itinerary, the number of points required should remain unchanged. However, I’m finding pricing of 55,000 points in economy, or 110,000 points in business class, so that’s way higher than you’d expect.
As another example, if you want to fly from Chicago (ORD) to Madrid (MAD) on Iberia, you’ll find pricing of 27,500 points in economy, or 55,000 points in business class, based on the distance of 3,501-5,000 miles.
If you add a connection to Barcelona (BCN) to the same itinerary, the number of points required should remain unchanged. However, I’m finding pricing of 35,000 points in economy, or 70,000 points in business class.
Is this a devaluation, glitch, or something else?
I’m trying to get an answer as to what’s going on here, and will report back once I learn more. As I see it, there are two most likely explanations.
One explanation is that this is in fact a devaluation. Some people might point out that as a condition of Alaska’s takeover of Hawaiian, the airline had to agree to not devalue its points. However, per the terms of the agreement, that specifically excludes partner award flights.
That being said, I wouldn’t expect Atmos Rewards management to devalue points in this way, since they care about running a competitive program, and I’d also expect them to communicate this more clearly. Transparency and member trust is something they value.
The other explanation is that this is a glitch, or at least wasn’t supposed to be rolled out yet. If it was a glitch, what could the explanation be? Could it be that a devaluation is planned, but it was accidentally rolled out too early, and perhaps not exactly as intended? Or could it be that the airline is updating its software in preparation of rolling out more multi-partner awards (which is long overdue)?
Like I said, I’ll provide an update once I know more, because this is not great…
Bottom line
Alaska Atmos Rewards appears to have greatly increased award costs in many markets. Specifically, many partner awards with connections are pricing much higher than before, and aren’t following the award chart. I hope this is a glitch and not an intentional devaluation, but I guess we’ll see…
What do you make of this very high Atmos Rewards award pricing?