Atmos™ Rewards Summit Visa Infinite® Credit Card review: Excellent value for frequent travelers

The newly-launched Atmos™ Rewards Summit Visa Infinite® Credit Card by Bank of America provides a solid premium travel card option for the recently-merged Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines rewards program, Atmos Rewards.

With a standout welcome offer and a perks package tailored for loyal flyers, the Atmos Summit card is worthy of a spot in any frequent traveler’s wallet. You may even want to rethink how you plan and pay for your future trips.

The Atmos Summit card packs major value into the first year of card ownership. It continues to deliver value if you can use the annual companion award.

Here’s a look at how much value you can expect to earn based on our card value rating methodology, which assumes an annual spend of $22,800 ($3,000 on dining out for 3X points per dollar spent and $19,800 on spending that earns 1X points per dollar) and Bankrate’s valuation of around 1.1 cents each for Atmos Rewards.

If you travel often and want to concentrate on earning boosted rewards and status within one program, the Atmos Summit is a great choice for your wallet.

Rewards: Unique value with international purchases

The Atmos Summit card earns Atmos Rewards, which Bankrate values at around 1.1 cents each. Like most co-branded airline cards, you’ll earn a boosted rate of 3X points for purchases with Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines. But while most co-branded cards are only affiliated with a single airline, the recent merger of these two airlines’ reward programs gives you more options than other cards. You’ll also earn 3X points for dining and foreign purchases, which is unique and can be highly valuable if you travel often. Many international merchants may not code correctly for earning bonus rewards, so getting dependable, high-value rewards no matter where you’re spending can take out a lot of guesswork.

Bank of America Preferred Rewards customers can earn an additional 10 percent rewards bonus with eligible accounts, bumping rates in the top categories to 3.3X points.

Atmos Rewards is a unique airline program that has its own set of airline partners in addition to being part of the oneworld alliance. While no airline currency has the flexibility offered by general travel cards, Atmos Rewards offers more booking possibilities than many other airlines.

Welcome offer: Big boost to your balance

Atmos takes a big swing with the Summit card’s initial welcome offer of 80,000 bonus points and a 25,000-point Global Companion Award after spending $4,000 within the first 90 days. 

This is one of the most generous welcome bonuses on the market — and it likely won’t last. Premium cards often offer the highest bonus when they launch, so it's best not to wait around if you’re interested.

Perks: Focused on frequent flyers

This card does an outstanding job of focusing on perks that can benefit loyal Atmos Rewards customers. You’ll get commonly offered perks like free checked baggage (for you and up to 6 guests on the same reservation) and credits for TSA PreCheck or Global Entry, as well as plenty of perks for frequent flyers.

Companion awards

You’ll get an annual Global 25K Companion Award every year, which you can use for a companion on the same itinerary when you book with Atmos Rewards. If you spend $60,000 in your anniversary year, you’ll earn another award worth a 100K discount. You can also use these awards on any partner airline bookable through Atmos Rewards for any class of service, meaning you could potentially get 100,000 points off a business or first class award booking. With the right strategic redemption, these awards could unlock thousands in travel savings — especially on premium cabin awards.

Fast-track to elite status

If you’re interested in elite status with Atmos Rewards, the Summit card can give you a major boost. You’ll get 10,000 status points every year on your account anniversary, which gets you halfway to Atmos Silver status. You’ll also earn one status point for every $2 spent on the card. So, if you were to spend $60,000 to earn the Global 100K Companion Award, you’d earn 30,000 status points, giving you a total of 40,000 points — which would qualify you for Atmos Gold status. Here are some of the benefits Atmos Rewards elite status can provide:

• Complimentary upgrades (when available)
• Complimentary preferred seating
• Status benefits with the oneworld® alliance
• Priority service
• Preferred boarding

Enhanced travel experience

The card also gives you solid perks for your travel experience. You’ll get two Alaska Lounge passes and Wi-Fi passes each quarter. There’s no change fees for same-day Alaska Airlines flight changes and no fees for booking partner award flights. But one of the card's most unique benefits is that you’ll receive a $50 voucher if your Alaska Airlines flight is canceled or has a departure delay of two hours or more. 

As is the case with many co-branded cards, if your travel needs don’t work with the brand, you’ll want to explore another option.

Travel needs: Doesn’t line up with Atmos

Although Alaska Airlines has beefed up route coverage with the merger with Hawaiian Airlines, its overall coverage still doesn’t measure up with other major domestic carriers. It’s heavily focused on the West Coast, so if your travel needs don’t work with their map, you likely won’t get value from this card. 

Atmos’ program can offer good value for booking partner awards — especially with American Airlines — but unless you frequently redeem partner awards at a high value, it may be best to consider other flexible travel cards.

Rates and fees: Costly card

Although the $395 annual fee is consistent with other premium co-branded airline cards, it can be difficult to justify the cost if you don’t fly often with Alaska or Hawaiian or use Atmos Rewards regularly. 

While the card doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees, most rates and fees are on the higher side. If you don’t get the low end of the APR, you’ll end up with a rate higher than the current average.

The Atmos Summit is for frequent Alaska and Hawaiian flyers. You might consider these options if you can’t justify the card’s higher cost.

The Atmos Summit is an ideal card for frequent flyers. The more you travel, the better value this card delivers. Consider this card if you:

• Fly Alaska Airlines or Hawaiian Airlines regularly
• Can spend enough to earn the 100K Global Companion Award
• Will get value from having elite status with Atmos Rewards

The Atmos Summit is a top option for regular travelers who can get good use from Atmos Rewards. Here are two other options which might work better for you if you need access to different airlines or prefer general travel cards.

Delta SkyMiles® Platinum Business American Express Card

Best for mid-tier luxury travel

Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card

Best for American Airlines loyalists

We rate credit cards using a proprietary card scoring system that ranks each card’s estimated average rewards rate, estimated annual earnings, welcome bonus value, APR, fees, perks and more against those of other cards in its primary category.

Each card feature is assigned a weighting based on how important it is to people looking for a card in a given category. These features are then scored based on how they rank relative to the features on other cards in the category. Based on these calculations, each card receives an overall rating of 1-5 stars (with 5 being the highest possible score and 1 being the lowest). 

We analyzed over 150 of the most popular rewards and cash back cards to determine where each stacked up based on their value, cost, benefits and more. Here are some of the key factors that influenced this card’s overall score and how the score influenced our review: