Alaska Opened a Three-Way Choice on How You Earn Points. The Default Depends on When You Joined.
· CX Pulse
Atmos Rewards members can now pick distance, price or segments. Anyone who never picks gets a default set by their join date.
Alaska Opened a Three-Way Choice on How You Earn Points. The Default Depends on When You Joined.
As of today, members of Atmos Rewards, the loyalty program Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines share, can choose how they earn points and status points on flights from January 1, 2027: by distance traveled, by price paid, or by segments flown. Alaska calls it "a first for a global airline." It promised the feature when the program launched in August 2025, for "later in 2026." Today is the day the setting opens.
The rates fit on a one-page fact sheet. One point per mile. Five points per dollar, before taxes and fees. A flat 500 points per segment. Run the arithmetic and three break-evens fall out. Price beats distance once the fare works out above 20 cents a mile. Segments beat distance on any flight under 500 miles. Segments beat price on any fare under $100.
So a 2,500-mile flight on a $300 base fare pays 2,500 points on distance, 1,500 on price and 500 on segments. A 300-mile hop for $89 pays 300, 445 and 500. The best option flips with the trip.
The choice plenty of members won't make
The fact sheet says "choosing how to earn is optional," and anyone who never opens the setting still ends up on one of the three. Current members who don't choose keep earning on distance. Anyone who joins on or after January 1, 2027 "will earn based on price paid unless they select an alternate earn choice."
Put two people in the same row on that 2,500-mile flight, same $300 fare. One joined in December, one in January, and neither has touched a setting. Before any status bonus, one earns 2,500 points and the other earns 1,500. Ben Schlappig at One Mile at a Time ran the numbers this morning and figures most passengers pay under 20 cents a mile, so "the old system continues to make the most sense for a lot of people." If he's right, the default a new member lands on pays less on a typical ticket. He also wrote that "for the average person, this could be hard to follow," and he does this for a living.
Members can change their choice once per calendar year, for future trips only. In the fact sheet's words, "no changes will apply to travel that's already been completed."
That isn't a knock on the design. Alaska said at launch it would "remain the only U.S. airline that offers points for miles flown," and keeping that option is a real offer. What changes is the service side. Once a customer picks their own earning formula, "which one should I pick" and "I picked wrong" become contact reasons, and the second one shows up after the points have already posted.
Alaska says a "modernized activity page designed to make it easier for members to see how they are earning points" arrives later this year. The release doesn't say whether the selection screen shows a member what each option would have paid on the flights they took last year. That one screen decides whether a member is choosing or guessing.
If you run CX for a large operation
You probably hand customers a choice like this already: plan tiers, billing cadence, rate plans, protection plans, service levels. The controls are the same every time. Show the customer their own history priced under each option at the moment they choose. A line like "this might be the best choice" for a type of traveler leaves the math with them. Their last twelve months does it for them.
Write down who owns the default and why it is what it is, because that rule sets the outcome for everyone who never engages. Report three numbers: the share of customers sitting on a default, the share whose own history says another option would've paid them more, and how many asked to switch after the window closed. Give agents a view of what the customer is on and what each alternative would have earned. Decide ahead of time who's allowed to say yes to an exception. A once-a-year lock with no exception path turns a setting into an escalation.
If you're a smaller operation
You have this too. Monthly or annual. Pay per visit or the membership. The ten-class pack or unlimited. Each one is a choice the customer makes once and lives with, usually with less information than you have. You can see their last year of purchases. They're guessing at their next one.
Customers on the wrong plan rarely complain. They work it out eventually, on their own, and what sticks is that you could see it the whole time. Telling someone "you'd have paid less on the other plan, want to switch?" costs a little revenue this month, and it's the conversation they'll remember you for.
Alaska gave members three ways to earn. The ones who never open the setting still end up on one of them, and which one was decided by a date on their account.