Alaska Atmos points sale, their best premium cabin uses, and Lufthansa's new centennial livery

Hey {{first name | reader}},

Happy Friday!

Today's edition is a good mix of strategy and aviation geekery: a new Alaska points sale that can unlock some excellent premium cabin redemptions, a breakdown of the best ways to actually use those miles for long-haul business and first class flights, and a new Lufthansa livery that caught my eye.

Alaska's loyalty program, Atmos Rewards (I still can't get used to the name), is running a promotion where you can buy points with up to a 90% bonus, depending on how many you purchase. At the top tier, the price works out to roughly $19.80 USD per 1,000 points.

The bonus tiers look like this:

Now, lets be honest. This isn't the best sale we've seen from Alaska. They usually run a 100% bonus, so I wouldn't buy just to stock up at this rate. But if you're short on points for a specific redemption you already have lined up, it can absolutely work out.

Alaska is part of the oneworld alliance and also partners with several non-alliance airlines, meaning you can redeem miles on carriers like Japan Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Qatar Airways, American Airlines, Starlux, Condor, and Fiji Airways. That partner network is the reason the program stays popular among us points enthusiasts.

Just keep in mind: because the purchase price for Atmos points is on the higher side, you need to run the numbers beforehand. There are sometimes better programs to use for certain airlines, so it's worth comparing before you buy.

Since we're talking about the program anyway, I thought it is a good moment to walk through some of the redemptions that can make sense.

This is one of the most classic redemptions. Business class between North America and Japan can start around 60,000 miles one-way,  and about 75,000 between Europe and Japan. JAL's long-haul product on their newer A350s is widely considered among the best in the world. Their older business class cabins aren't as impressive, but they're still a solid and comfortable way to get to Japan. Overall, hard to go wrong here.

Alaska offers some solid value for American Airlines business class. There are strong prices here, like 50,000 miles for a one-way ticket between New York and Buenos Aires, a roughly 10-hour flight,  and availability tends to be decent on a lot of routes. You could also redeem 75,000 points for first class, but I personally don't think it's worth it unless you want to see it as a once-in-a-lifetime thing before they phase it out entirely and say “I flew AA First Class back in the day”. But business class is a genuinely good use of these miles.

This one can occasionally work out, but you need to be careful. It would almost always be cheaper to book Qsuites through Avios, but if you can't get the Avios availability and you happen to find award space at a reasonable Alaska rate, it's worth knowing the option exists. Just watch out for "Flexi" award pricing, which can push redemptions well above 150,000 miles one-way. At that level, the value disappears fast.

This one is a bit more niche. Alaska partners with Condor, the German leisure airline, and some of the best value shows up on longer routes between Europe and destinations in America or Southeast Asia.

For example, you can book Frankfurt → Phuket in business class for 75,000 Atmos points one-way, or Frankfurt → Toronto in Condor’s A330-900neo business class for about 55,000 points one-way, which are very reasonable prices for such a long flights.

One thing that makes Alaska's program unique is its free stopover rule on many international awards. That means you could do something like:

New York → Tokyo (stopover) → Bangkok

…all on a single award ticket.

It's a small feature, but it can dramatically increase the value you get from your miles. And you already know how I feel about stopovers — no need to remind you. 😉

Now let's switch to purely aviation-geek territory.

Lufthansa is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2026, and the airline has unveiled a special centennial livery across several aircraft types. The design is striking: a deep blue fuselage, a giant white crane stretching across the aircraft, and the “1926 - 2026" markings celebrating the centenary. The crane, which is Lufthansa's iconic logo, blends into the wings, making it look like the bird is actually taking flight across the entire fuselage (their words, not mine...). 

The special livery will appear on multiple aircraft types, including the Boeing 747-8, Boeing 787-9, Airbus A350, A380, and A320. Personally, I love this design. It feels bold in the best way, like Lufthansa saying: "We've been here for a long time… and we're planning to stay."

I can't deny I keep having a very aviation-geek thought: Lufthansa operates the Frankfurt (FRA) → Buenos Aires (EZE) route on a Boeing 747-8 regularly. It would be pretty special to see that livery here in Argentina someday.

That's it for today. Enjoy your weekend! More deals and strategies coming your way on Monday.

Catch you in the clouds, 

Tomi