ICYMI: Atmos Rewards Raises Partner Award Booking Fees by 60%

Alaska Airlines' Atmos Rewards quietly made partner awards more expensive earlier this month.

Effective July 1, 2026, the partner award booking fee jumped from $12.50 to $20 per person, each direction. This is a whopping 60% increase. The fee applies whenever you redeem Atmos points on a partner airline such as American Airlines, British Airways, or Japan Airlines.

Awards on Alaska and Hawaiian flights are unaffected — those only have standard government taxes starting at $5.60 each way. But for partner redemptions, a round-trip partner award now carries $40 in fees per person, so a family of four pays $160 in booking fees alone before taxes.

There's one way around paying this fee. The Atmos Rewards Summit Visa Infinite card waives the partner award booking fee entirely.

Andrew's Take

Atmos is still one of the best programs going — 4,500-point short-haul partner awards and 45,000-point transatlantic business class tickets are two of my favorite redemptions. But $40 in round-trip fees per person stings most on exactly those cheap short-haul redemptions, where the fee can eat up a significant portion of the ticket's value. If you redeem on partners more than a couple times a year, the Summit card is worth considering for the fee waiver.