The Extra Mile, July 6: Alaska Award Fee Increase, Big Credit Card Benefit Tracker Updates & More

😡 Alaska Just Made Its Partner Awards More Expensive

If Atmos Rewards award tickets are looking pricier lately, you’re not imagining things.

Effective July 1, Alaska raised the fee for booking partner airline awards from $12.50 to $20 per person, each direction – a 60% jump. It applies any time you use Atmos Rewards points on a partner carrier like American, British Airways, or Japan Airlines. Flights on Alaska, Hawaiian, or Horizon metal are unaffected – those still carry only standard taxes starting at $5.60 each way.

Atmos Rewards remains one of the most useful programs out there, with partner sweet spots like 4,500 points one-way in economy or 45,000 points for a one-way business class seat across the Atlantic on partners like Icelandair. But that value takes a hit once you factor in the new fee structure.

Take a round-trip on American from Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) to Chicago (ORD). At just 4,500 miles each way, the price is (practically) unbeatable. But the extra partner award booking fees? Well … they add up.

While an extra $7.50 each might not sound like much, it gets costly when you multiply it out. Booking for a family of four? That’s $160 in partner fees alone.

Thankfully, there is an easy(ish) workaround: The Atmos™ Rewards Summit Visa Infinite® card waives this fee entirely. I picked mine up last year, even without having ever set foot on an Alaska plane because of the big bonus and added perks. Between the annual 25K Global Companion Award, 10,000 status points each cardmember year, and the newly-increased partner award fee waiver, it’s earned a permanent spot in my wallet.

Bottom line? An extra $7.50 in each direction (per person) isn’t going to break Atmos Rewards as a program, but it adds real cost for anyone who regularly redeems on partners. If you’re sitting on a stash of Atmos Rewards points (or transferable Bilt points), the Summit card could be worth a second look.

– Jackson Newman, senior editor

🤝 Deal of the Day: Qsuites to India for $2,871 RT!

Heat scale (out of 3): 🔥🔥🔥

Why we love it: Qatar’s Qsuites is broadly considered the best business class seat in the world, and we’ve never seen it bookable for this cheap!

Fly from Chicago (ORD) through Doha (DOH) to Mumbai (BOM) next spring for just $2,871 roundtrip. (FYI: These fares typically go for more than $7,000!)

Sign up now to get all the details on this deal & don’t miss the next flight deal alert.

Already a member? Log in to see all your deals. (Not seeing it? Remove your airport filters to see every deal.)

– Gunnar Olson, Thrifty Traveler Premium deal analyst

Presented by How to Money – Turn Travel Wins Into Life Wins

You’re already a smart traveler. Be just as smart with your money.

You’re reading Thrifty Traveler, so you’re becoming a travel savant – finding deals, stretching your budget, and getting more out of every trip. Now it’s time to apply that same mindset to the rest of your finances.

How To Money is the podcast that helps you spend smarter, invest better, and build real wealth – without the jargon.

Because when your money is working for you, those travel wins go even further.

Listen to How To Money on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

🎉 Our Free Card Benefit Tracker Just Got Even Better

Last month, we said sayonara to spreadsheets and brought our insanely popular credit card benefit tracking tool online. Just a few weeks later, we gave it another massive upgrade.

Want to track your authorized users? You got it. Have multiple American Express Business Platinum® Cards to track? No problem. Have a retail store card you want to be sure gets counted toward your Chase 5/24 status? We got you. Random benefits or Amex Offers you think should count toward your total credits? Yep, that too.

We just rolled out all those big upgrades and several more to our Credit Card Benefit Tracker. I was confident this was the best free tool on the market to manage and maximize your travel cards before … and now it’s even better!

To get started, just log in with your existing flight deal credentials – or create an account if you don’t already have one!

Get started now!

Already using this tool? Your features are automatically upgraded – no action required!

Here’s the full list of new features you’ll find:

• A quick household summary view to give you the status of all your users’ card benefits and points in one glance
• Add multiples of the same card with the ability to customize the name, so you know which one is which
• Independently add cards we don’t track because while there aren’t many, you still want to keep tabs on your random retail store card or Apple Card and how it affects your 5/24 status
• Authorized user tracking for that additional card you’re paying for to extend lounge access or a line of credit to a spouse or pal
• Add custom benefits like Amex or Chase offers as well as retention offers – they might not be bona fide benefits, but they add up!
• Easy card downgrades or product changes without messing with your Chase 5/24 status or open accounts
• Separate tracking for companion certificates or hotel free nights because we know they’re so valuable
• Visual enhancements like ordering your cards however you see fit and the ability to hide perks you don’t care about

All that – plus all the usual features like color-coded warnings for benefits, progress toward recouping your annual fee, tracking your points, and more – for 120-plus cards and counting.

We started building out this tool last year to help travelers track, simplify, and maximize the growing list of benefits on travel credit cards. With more premium cards hitting the market and others adding more use-them-or-lose benefits, it’s started to feel like a full-time job.

This new-and-improved dashboard should make it even easier to track all your cards in one place so you never let a valuable perk go to waste again.

As always, there’s no personal information necessary here. No bank account logins, no frequent flyer credentials, no credit scores and definitely no Social Security Numbers. Just add the cards you want, mark the perks as you use them, and we’ll securely store it for you to come back to anytime.

Have at it. And let us know what you think!

– Kyle Potter, executive editor

🎙️ On the Pod: An Incredible Hawaii Points Deal

✈️ The guys break down all the news – including Kyle’s discovery of one of the best points deals for Hawaii flights, some Delta news, and both of your hosts got a little booksy – so where are the guys heading and what did they book?

Tune in now on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!

💼 Come Work With Us: We’re Hiring a Hotel Expert!

Are you a diehard traveler and bona fide “sicko” (that’s a term of endearment around here) when it comes to hotels and award travel?

Do you love nothing more than scouring for the next great hotel redemption? Want to help others do the same? Loathe the prospect of another devaluation but relish the thought of breaking that news?

We don’t just want you. We need you.

Here at TT HQ, we’re hiring again – this time for a dedicated hotel deal analyst & reporter. It’s a hybrid role, split between the two worlds of what we do here at Thrifty Traveler:

• You’ll spearhead and even expand the hotel deal alerts that make our Thrifty Traveler Premium+ service so special, and
• Help us cover the news and must-knows of all things hotels on our site, social media, and in this very newsletter!

There’s tons of additional details, responsibilities, qualifications, and basics about the job on our site, but here’s a big one: We’re specifically looking for someone who can join us in our Minneapolis office.

Fit the bill? Be sure to apply by the July 19 deadline!

… and see you soon in the office?

– Kyle Potter, executive editor

✈️ Other Travel Tidbits

• 💰 An unconventional bonus offer: Earn up to 75,000 points with the Citi Strata Premier Card!
• 🤝 Uh oh: A U.S.-based private equity firm wants to take over one of Europe’s biggest ultra-low-cost carriers. (OMAAT)
• ✈️ Cheap flights are still out there. Here’s where to look … and how to find them.
• 🏨 Save 20% at luxe Hilton properties with this targeted Amex Offer. (Frequent Miler)
• 💌 The Chase Sapphire Preferred’s limited-time offer is great, but don’t stop there. You can do much better by sharing the love!