Alaska Airlines has launched its program under the name Atmos Rewards. As of October 01, this will also become the new program for Hawaiian Airlines, which will then discontinue its Hawaiian Miles program.

And Alaska Airlines is not using this for a hidden devaluation. On the contrary. The rather generous program structure will be maintained and improved in specific areas.

For members in the USA, a new premium credit card will be introduced, offering interesting benefits such as free global upgrades. With flights to the Asia-Pacific region acquired from Hawaiian and Alaska’s new flights from Seattle to Europe (London, Rome), this can indeed be interesting.
But perhaps most importantly, starting in 2026, members will be able to choose whether they want to earn points on Alaska and Hawaiian flights based on the previous distance-based system, on a revenue basis (5 points per USD) or a segment basis (500 points per segment).

Due to the attractiveness of their product, Emirates has long suffered from having many “customers” who convert points collected through credit cards into Skywards miles and then use reward seats on Emirates flights in Business and First Class. Due to limited award availability, “real” customers who have often flown for a long time to earn the required miles are left empty-handed.

Since this is not in the spirit of customer loyalty, Emirates has taken measures in recent months that are not always popular with everyone (namely, the bank customers), but were indeed taken in the interest of the best Emirates customers.

This includes the termination of bank partnerships, or more frequently the deterioration of conversion rates, the restriction of the usage of First Class awards to status customers, and the non-transferability of these rewards to children under eight years old.

All in all, these are some bold decisions, with Emirates opting against quick money but deciding in favour of the interests of their frequent flyers.

Bravo!

Singapore Airlines’ KrisFlyer program is admittedly clever: Award prices are increased at very regular intervals, but only by a relatively small amount each time.

So again on November 01, when most award prices (including with airline partners) will be increased by 5-10%. Some increases go up to 20%, while many Singapore Airlines flights in Economy Class are even reduced by around 5%.

However, this tactic should not disguise the fact that the program is unfortunately becoming less and less attractive, gradually but surely. And, as in all mileage-based programs, such price increases cannot be justified at all – at least not if you actually collect your miles with flights and not with credit cards. Due to the increased flight prices, one has to spend significantly more today to accrue the same number of miles. Therefore, there is absolutely no need to increase the cost of reward flights themselves.

Also new to the program is that the budget subsidiary Scoot has introduced a table for full award flights. So if you can really make do with very little, you can now fly round trip from Europe to Australia for just 73,000 miles (and even only 61,000 miles to Perth).

When Alitalia left us a few years ago, ITA continued its business practically unchanged. With the significant limitation that they were not allowed to take over their frequent flyer program MilleMiglia and thus had to introduce VOLARE, which still hasn’t really gotten off the ground.

MilleMiglia, however, survived as an independent program with some partners from the travel industry – and some of Alitalia’s former SkyTeam partners, notably Air France KLM.

However, this curiosity will soon be a thing of the past: On December 31, the program will cease operations, and all points not used by then will be lost without compensation. Until November 30, points can still be collected in the program with the current partners.

Gulf Air turned 75 this year. Even though the company’s best times are long gone, it is still an interesting niche carrier.

And its Falconflyer members can benefit additionally until January 31: For every account activity, including redeeming miles or collecting with partners, you get a ticket to a draw for a total of 75 prizes such as upgrades, bonus miles or a higher status in the program.

Gulf Air is a bit vague about what exactly the prizes consist of, but if you engage with the program a little more than usual over the coming months, you might just find an unexpected surprise waiting for you!