tl;dr – A list of travel deals(s) I’m moving on that you may also want to consider.
We’re back with another installment of “Deals I’m Booking That You Should Book Too”, a weekly series where I walk you through a random (possibly more) curated deal(s) – points & miles, cash, otherwise – that I find compelling for one reason or another. You can find the past installments here (and yes, volumes 3-5 are on their way, I have forgotten!).
If you find these deals helpful, we’d love it if you subscribed to You Are Travel.
Ok, let’s dive into it.
American Airlines Flagship Business Class to South America for $1200?
Yes, indeed. Today we’re going to see ‘what’s poppin’ in the good land of Atmos Rewards – Alaska Airlines’ rebranded loyalty program in the post-Hawaiian Airlines merger world. Although much has been made about the program’s devaluations, several outsized values remain, including using Atmos Rewards to book business-class seats on fellow oneworld carrier American Airlines.
Let’s take a peek.
I recently redeemed Atmos Rewards to book a one-way business class itinerary (MSY-MIA-GRU) to São Paulo, Brazil, for 55,000 Atmos Rewards. The total cost to do this was just about $1200, which is about half of the lowest cash price for this fare, and about a third of the standard cash price of this fare:
Alaska Airlines is running a sale on Atmos Rewards right now (valid through ), where you purchase Atmos Rewards with up to a 100% bonus. I was only targeted for an 80% bonus, so it’s worth noting that if you are lucky enough for the full 100% bonus, the math makes even more sense in that you’ll pay less than the $1200 I did, all in.
There aren’t a ton of great long-haul options to get from North America to South America in a premium lie-flat cabin, and if you’re looking at American Airlines (particularly if you’re connecting), you’re likely going through either Dallas or Miami. The good news is that when you have a connection (staging flight), the cost of this routing (when booking through Alaska) can be as little as 55,000 Atmos Rewards, and that staging flight – your flight from *wherever* to Dallas or Miami, will likely be in domestic first class.
There’s a healthy amount of availability for this route about a month out, and I was able to confirm seats for the date I needed on Alaska’s website. That said, you can typically find availability much further out as well.
You might also want to call in to doubly confirm this availability, as Alaska has been known to throw some errors when attempting to book partner awards online.
After spying the flight on Alaska’s site…
…I went to work on purchasing the needed Atmos Rewards.
As you can see, when factoring in the tax recovery fee of 7.5%, I’m paying $1,128.75. As this route also calls for $19 in taxes and fees, my ‘out the door price’ is $1147.75.
Not bad.
Keep in mind that there’s similar pricing to other long-haul destinations in South America, such as Rio de Janeiro (GIG), Buenos Aires (EZE), and Santiago, Chile (SCL). All can be had for the same 55,000 Atmost Rewards.
And of course, how could I leave out the fact that these fares include access to the AA Flagship Lounges in Miami, Dallas, and Charlotte (once it opens!)
As a final note, I’ll point out that this quick trick doesn’t involve applying for any credit cards or meeting any minimum spend. There’s certainly a time and place for all that. Still, if you’re someone who, for any reason, can’t access the credit markets, it’s good to know that if you have any instrument at all that’ll let you make purchases online (debit card) and can afford $1000, then a luxury experience like this is still within your reach.
And once more, if you found this helpful, we’d love it if you subscribed to You Are Travel!
The power of points and miles.
