My Plans With The Atmos Summit Card (2026)

When I originally wrote this article in August 2025, I planned on dropping my American Airlines status for 2026 and moving into the Atmos program, and I have done exactly that. I no longer have American status and now have Atmos Gold, all thanks to my trusty Atmos™ Rewards Summit Visa Infinite® credit card.

I'm still based in San Francisco and am planning on keeping my Atmos™ Rewards Summit Visa Infinite® credit card for another year.

This article/guide gives you an overview into why I got the card in August 2025 and why I'm retaining the card, despite the large annual fee.

What Is The New Atmos Summit Card?

This credit card is the result of Alaska Airlines/Hawaiian Airlines newly merged loyalty program. While it carries a hefty $395 fee, it also has some of the most unique benefits ever seen when it comes to credit cards:

• Global 25K Companion Award awarded every year on your account anniversary: this benefit alone could be (in theory) be used to justify the annual fee on the card. It gives 25,000 points off a companion’s award ticket. So if you’re trying to book a ticket for you and your companion on the same flight for 30k points each, instead of paying 60k points, you’d pay just 35k points.

• Receive 8 Alaska Lounge passes annually: while these are divvied up into 2 each quarter, they provide access to Alaska lounges, which aren’t as easy to access as other lounges. This likely means I can drop my Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard®, which originally provided me access to Alaska lounges

• Earn 1 status point/$2 spent on purchases: pretty powerful feature if you consider Alaska Airline’s status bands: this means you need to put $40k in spend to get Atmos Silver status (the lowest status tier)

• Instant $50 Travel Delay Credit: if your Alaska Airlines flight is canceled or delayed by more than 2 hours, then you get a $50 voucher, up to one per calendar day and must be used within 48 hours of issuance. Incredibly unique perk with a lot of potential value if you fly on Alaska frequently; however, the limited timeframe to use the voucher will likely be a bit annoying. Terms apply.

• Same-day Change Fee Waiver: this is an awesome perk that again will provide tons of value for Summit cardholders who don’t already have Atmos Gold status. It basically allows you to skip the initial status requirements and get an extraordinarily strong perk that is typically only accessible to higher elite tiers (Saver fares are not eligible for same day confirmed changes)

• Point Sharing: super useful benefit that lets you share points with up to 10 other Atmos Rewards members. I can already see how this is going to be useful for my close friends/families, but I can also see how this is likely going to be an abused benefit due to how easy it feels to use. We’ll see how Atmos reacts

• Earn 3x on Foreign Purchases: wow. This is literally a gamechanger type of benefit (still don't see a card with this earning category as of Aug 2026). The only card in the game that offers an earn rate like this is the Robinhood Gold.

To put it simply: Atmos has designed a new, innovative credit card that isn’t exactly something that can be churned/burned; rather, it is an excellent card to have in your wallet if you have any type of Alaska Airlines loyalty.

Just these benefits alone make the card extremely easy to justify if you fly Alaska more than a few times every year.

(this is not an exhaustive list of benefits, but more like a high level overview)

What Happens If I Spend A Lot On This Card?

After spending $60,000+ on this card in an anniversary year, you get a Global 100k Companion Award.

This benefit is essentially identical to the Global 25k Companion Award, except it lets you save up to 100,000 Atmos points on a companion's award ticket when booking an award flight for two on Alaska's site.

An awesome benefit, assuming you can meet the hefty spend requirements to acquire it.

To put it simply: let’s say you’re booking a Starlux business class flight from San Francisco to Taipei on the overpriced, yet always available 175k points/seat. With a Global 100k Companion Award, you can make the cost for two people come out to 125k points/seat. Although this is still expensive for some savvy award travelers, it’s still a great way to make use of the 100k points savings provided by the card.

What is this Bank of America 10% Bonus?

If you have an eligible Bank of America® account, you will earn a 10% rewards bonus on all points earned from card purchases.

This… makes the value proposition of this card all that much stronger and is making me even consider opening a Bank of America account soon. What’s an “eligible” account?

According to the terms & conditions:

An active Qualifying Account is an open consumer (non-business) checking or savings account with Bank of America N.A. or an investment account with Merrill that maintains an average daily balance greater than $0 or a Bank of America checking or savings account that has had a deposit or withdrawal within 90 days. Balances are reviewed at the end of every month to determine if qualifications were met.

Anyways, the math on this is simple: if you have an “eligible” Bank of America account (eg consumer checking account like Advantage SafeBalance Banking), you get 10% more points. So that means foreign purchases earn 3.3x points/$1. This is actually a ridiculous amount of points to be earning.

The primary tradeoff is that you need to park some money into Bank of America accounts (to avoid monthly maintenance fees), which don’t earn a significant amount of interest. Some ballpark math here is that $500 in an Advantage SafeBalance checking account waives all fees, so if you’re forfeiting 4% APY in a HYSA, you’re losing out on $20 to earn 10% more points yearly. You’d breakeven on that investment with more than $700 on foreign purchases per year.

Is this same as BofA Rewards?

No, the 10% bonus here is unique to the Atmos credit card program.

BofA Rewards bonuses do not apply to any of the Atmos credit cards.

What Are The Sweet Spots When Spending On This Card?

There are a few factors that I think are worth considering when analyzing this card in terms of spend:

• You earn 1 status points for every $2 spent on the card

• You get a 100k Global Companion Award when spending $60k/cardmember anniversary year

The most obvious one is putting $60k of spend on this card gets you quite a bit. But, not many people are typically spending $60k/year on a credit card. That’s where one of the more interesting plays (that I’m excited about) comes in: using the Atmos Summit card for rent payments.

How Can You Earn Points On Rent Using The Atmos Card?

Bilt and Alaska Airlines have a unique partnership that allows you to pay your rent using the Atmos Summit and Atmos Ascent cards to earn 3x Atmos points per $1 paid for rent, at the cost of a 3% transaction fee (up to $50k in annual Rent Spend per calendar year, then 1x points per dollar of rent spend).

So, that means if you put $1,000 in rent down, you:

• Get charged a $30 fee

• Get 3,000 points (via the Bilt/Alaska 3x points partnership)

• Also get 300 bonus points via the 10% Bank of America eligible account

• Earn 500 status points

The Atmos Summit Card has a very interesting sweet spot when you max out the $50k cap per calendar year:

• Charged $1,500 in fees

• Earn 150,000 in Atmos points (via the Bilt/Alaska 3x points partnership)

• Get a bonus 15,000 Atmos Points via 10% bonus from having eligible Bank of America account

• Earn 25,000 status points

• Gets you 5/6 of the way there to the elusive $60k spend requirement for the 100k Global Companion Award

Obviously $50k in rent annually is… very very high, but you can see the gist that comes to play here. High spend on this card, especially on the rent and foreign purchases categories can deliver a lot of value.

How Do You Maximize The Atmos Summit Card?

For me, I think the Atmos Summit card is going to become a primary player in my day-to-day.

One of my former employers hosted their 401k via Merrill Lynch, so I am already eligible for the 10% bonus. So, no need to open any other Bank of America accounts.

Then, for all foreign purchase spend, the Atmos Summit Card is going to become the undisputed, set and forget option. Literally for any purchases abroad, there’s little reason to ever use another card. Earning 3.3x points per $1 spent (3x base foreign purchases plus 10% bonus) beats just about every other card in terms of convenience and value, especially given that foreign purchases can oftentimes code weirdly.

Next, I am going to put all my rent spend on the Atmos Summit Card via Bilt’s partnership. Since I pay my apartment’s entire rent, I will max out the $50k calendar year limit to earn at the elevated 3x Atmos points per dollar of eligible rent (note: there is a 3% fee).

With these two factors at play, I expect to be able to spend $60,000 in an anniversary year, which will not only net me the lucrative 100k Global Companion Award but also 30k status points.

These status points will then position me to get Atmos Gold Status in 2026 pretty easily.

Should You Get The Atmos Summit Card?

I think the equation is pretty simple:

• Do you fly Alaska more than 2-4 times a year? If yes, the Summit card is likely to provide a lot of value with its lounge access benefits, $50 travel delay/cancellation credit, etc

• Do you want Alaska status? If yes, this card is significantly better than its $95 counterpart when it comes earning status via credit card spend

• Do you use Atmos miles to fly internationally frequently? If yes, you’re going to really appreciate the waived $20.00 partner award fees

I check off all three of these boxes, so it’s a pretty easy value add for me. This card is going to be the key for me to achieve Atmos Gold/Platinum status in 2026 and will also likely get me in a good spot to pursue Titanium at some point.

FAQs

What type of Bank of America account do you need to earn the 10% rewards bonus for the Atmos Summit Card?

Unfortunately, there’s no specific list here, but our best guess is that the Bank of America checking & savings accounts, CDs, and Merrill investment accounts will count.

How much do you need to spend on the Atmos Summit Card to earn the 25k Global Companion Award?

Nothing. You get this every year on your account anniversary with no minimum required spend.

How many points do you earn from using the Atmos Summit Card for rent payments via Bilt Rewards?

You earn 3x points per dollar spent via Bilt Rewards, but you also pay a 3% fee. If you have an eligible Bank of America account, you earn 3.3x points per dollar. This increased rate is limited to the first $50k spent on rent per calendar year.

How do you earn status points with the Atmos Summit Card?

On every account anniversary, you get 10,000 status points. Then, for every $2 spent on the card, you get 1 status point.

How much do you need to spend on the Atmos Summit Card to earn the 100k Global Companion Award?

After spending $60,000+ on this card in an anniversary year, you get a Global 100k Companion Award.