Why I like using Atmos™ Rewards points for American Airlines flights

If you’re trying to fly on American Airlines, chances are you might have to fork over hundreds of dollars to book your flights. Particular flights, even short-distance ones, can be terribly expensive, especially if you’re flying to or from a rural airport. Additionally, flying between two major cities or flying internationally can easily rack up a fortune in costs.

While American Airlines may be notoriously expensive at times, its mileage program, AAdvantage, is one of the best reward programs among the major U.S.-based airlines. However, since American Airlines AAdvantage miles are known for providing high-value redemptions, they are difficult to obtain and highly coveted.

Before the launch of the Citi Strata Elite℠ Card and Citi’s partnership with American Airlines, the only way you could obtain AAdvantage miles in bulk without spending tens of thousands of dollars was through an American Airlines co-branded credit card, such as Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite Mastercard® or AAdvantage® Aviator® Red World Elite Mastercard.

Since it can be difficult to obtain AAdvantage miles, you might not want to spend them once you have them. However, due to American Airlines’ membership in the Oneworld alliance, you may be in luck.

Thanks to both of their memberships in the Oneworld alliance, American Airlines and Alaska Airlines have a partnership, allowing you the ability to book flights operated by American Airlines via the rewards program of Alaska Airlines, which is Atmos™ Rewards.

If you do some digging, you might discover that you can book American Airlines flights via Alaska Airlines for fewer Atmos points than it would cost if you wanted to book directly with American Airlines using AAdvantage miles.

Short-Haul Flights: 700 miles or less in distance

If you ever find yourself needing to fly a relatively short distance, you might be discouraged when finding out that these short-haul flights can be surprisingly expensive, especially if you’re flying to or from a relatively small or rural airport.

Even though these short flights cover less than 5 times the distance of flying between the East Coast and Europe, you may sometimes find yourself paying just as much or sometimes even more to fly a short flight compared to a flight to Europe.

For example, if you want to fly nonstop on American Airlines from New York (LGA) to Montréal (YUL), you might find yourself paying almost $300 for a round-trip flight, as seen in the image above.

This amount can sometimes be even more, especially if you’re traveling during a high season, such as the holidays or the summer. I’ve found round-trip flights between New York and Europe for $300 and less in the past, so the thought of paying that same amount just to fly for less than 2 hours to Canada is a little ridiculous.

Here’s where miles and points come into play. If you wanted to book this flight using AAdvantage miles, a one-way flight would start at 7.5k miles. For a round-trip flight, you would need about 15k miles, which is honestly a lot, considering that you can book a one-way flight to or from Asia in business class for about 4 times the amount of miles.

I find AAdvantage miles to be pretty precious as they can hold a lot of value when used correctly, so I would err on the side of caution when deciding whether or not to use your miles for booking short-haul flights like these.

If you find yourself caught in this dilemma, don’t fret. You might find yourself in luck if you have access to Atmos™ Rewards points.

A major advantage of the Atmos™ Rewards program is that you can book short-haul flights, which are defined as flights that travel a distance of 700 miles or less, for just 4.5k points. This is one of the strongest aspects of the Atmos™ Rewards program, in my opinion.

I find myself needing to travel to Montréal next summer because I was able to secure tickets to see Ariana Grande at one of her shows for the Eternal Sunshine Tour, and also because I want to attend the yearly music festival that subsequent weekend, which is the 2026 edition of The Osheaga Music and Arts Festival.

Since I’ll be needing to travel to Montréal in late July and early August, prices for flights are currently inflated since I’m looking so far ahead in the future. For example, if I wanted to book a round-trip flight between New York and Montréal right now, it would cost me more than $500.

Additionally, since I’m looking nearly a year in advance, the availability of reward flights is scarce. However, space for award flight redemptions is always periodically released, so I’m just waiting to pounce on a 4.5k point redemption for a flight to Montréal.

If I’m able to take advantage of Atmos™ Rewards’ deal for short-haul flights, score a round-trip redemption to Montréal for 9k points, I’ll be obtaining unbelievable value out of my points for my redemption.

Since I’m trying to attend events that are popular, and I’m also traveling during the summer, it is essential that I book my flights as soon as possible before the prices become inflated due to the influx of people traveling to Montréal.

As I mentioned before, the current price of a round-trip flight between New York and Montréal is about $500. An award redemption for 9k points would yield a cent-per-point value of about 5.5 cents per point, which is an insane value for a non-business class flight redemption.

Point redemptions for economy class flights usually hover at a value of around 1 to 2 cents per point, so redeeming points for an economy class flight at a value of 5.5 cents per point is an insanely good deal.

The power of Atmos™ Rewards points is not limited to this example of the New York - Montréal route, but is available to any short-haul flight operated by any airline you can book with via the Atmos™ Rewards program.