Introduction
I’ve completed one year of holding the Alaska Airlines Summit Card and wanted to discuss the value I’ve gotten out of its Companion Award benefit. Even if you are someone like myself who doesn’t fly Alaska Airlines much, I think the companion awards alone make the card worth holding as you can utilize them on international flights with other One World airlines including American, British Airways, JAL, Qatar, etc.
What is the Alaska Airlines Companion Award Benefit?
The Alaska Airlines Summit Card offers two companion awards – a 25K Global Companion Award and a 100K Global Companion Award. As the name implies, a companion award is essentially a discount for a companion when booking an award flight. The 25K certificate offers up to a 25,000 point discount for your companion on an award booking and, likewise, the 100K certificate offers up to a 100,000 point discount.
To make this clearer, let’s look at an example of how I got value out of the 25K certificate. This past summer, my partner and I traveled from Dublin, Ireland to Chicago in business class on Aer Lingus. Aer Lingus is a partner with Alaska Airlines so you can redeem your Alaska Airlines points and companion awards for its flights. As shown, Aer Lingus charges 55,000 points plus $68 dollars in taxes/fees per passenger in business class on this route.
If you were to book this itinerary for two people, the cost would be 110K points and $136 in taxes/fees. What value does the 25K companion award offer? By applying the 25K companion award you essentially get 25K points off the cost of your companion ticket. In other words, the cost of my ticket is still 55K points but now my companion’s ticket only costs 30K points. An international business class ticket for only 30K points? That’s incredible value.
If you elected to travel in economy, you would pay 27.5K points for yourself and then only 2.5K points for your companion after the certificate. I’d recommend the business class redemption since you are earning much more value for your points, but economy can still be a solid option when cash tickets are otherwise expensive.
Below are the search results when applying the companion award, and it clearly breaks down the cost of each passenger.
The 100K global companion award is even better with its higher redemption amount. I view this as essentially a buy one get one free international award ticket. You could of course use the 100K certificate in the previous Aer Lingus example and your companions ticket would be completely free since the cost is under 100K. However, you can get even more value out of this certificate on higher cost redemptions from North America to the Middle East, Asia, or Australia.
Below are some examples where you could spend between 75K-85K points on international flights in business class on Starlux, American, Alaska, and Qantas. Your companion would be completely free with the 100k certificate in all of these instances. If you were to spend 85K points total for two international business class tickets, that breaks down to 42.5K points per person, which is an unheard of redemption.
How Do You Earn Alaska Companion Awards with the Summit Card?
Once you have the Alaska Airlines Summit Card, you can earn a 25K and a 100K companion award per year. The 25k award is an ongoing benefit you earn each year just by retaining the card. The only exception is the first year you hold the card. For the first year, the 25K companion award is part of the sign up bonus for the card. You’ll earn the certificate by completing the associated sign up bonus spend requirement. As of writing, you earn 80K points and a 25K certificate by spending $4,000 in the first 90 days. These offers vary throughout the year and has been as high as a 100K sign up bonus.
For the 100K companion award, it’s earned by spending at least $60K annually on the card. That’s certainly a high threshold but given you can put monthly rent/mortgage payments on the card through Bilt, you might be able to put a good dent in that amount with little effort depending on your circumstances. I’ll outline this process more in a future post.
Once you have the card, you can track your spend towards the $60K threshold easily through the Bank of America Website. After logging in to your account, you’ll find a spending tracker. New spend on the card typically posts to the tracker within 3-4 days in my experience. You’ll also easily see the yearly timeframe you have to earn the companion award, which starts on the day you are approved for the card.
When Does the Alaska Companion Award Post to Your Account?
When you first sign up for the card, you can expect the first 25K certificate to post to your account shortly after you meet the minimum spend requirement and your statement closes. I first signed up for the card on September 5th, 2025 and completed the sign up bonus spend within my first month. The 25K companion award posted to my account on October 11th, 2025, which was just days after my first month statement closed.
After your first year, you can expect the 25K companion award to post to on or near your account anniversary. I signed up for the card on September 5th, 2025 and received my next 25K companion award on September 5th, 2026. For the 100K companion award, it posted within 5 days after I completed the $60K spending requirement.
You’ll know the companion award has posted to your Alaska Airlines account by looking in one of two places. Most easily you can find it by going to your Alaska Airlines Account menu and selecting Discounts/Companion Fare.
On this page, you’ll find your global companion certificates and the associated expiration dates. Do note these companion certificates expire a year after issuance.
You’ll also notice companion awards post to your account under your points activity page.
How to Redeem the Alaska Global Companion Award
Once you’ve earned a global companion award, you can go to your Discounts/Companion Fare page and click the “Use to book” button.
This will direct you to the booking page for Alaska Airlines and pre-populate a discount code for your search. I wish it did this automatically but for the search to work, you’ll need to make sure you select 2 passengers and select the “Use points” checkbox. If you want to book a one way award ticket, be sure to check that option as well (companion awards can be used on oneway or roundtrip tickets but you are limited to a 25k or 100K discount total for the companion).
Alaska Global Companion Awards – Pilot Debrief
The Alaska Airlines Summit Card offers a 25K and 100K Global companion award that be can be used to reduce award ticket costs across a variety of airlines. Hopefully this post sheds some light on the value you can get from these certificates especially in international premium cabins. The Summit card comes with a $395 dollar annual fee, but if you can use these certificates along with some of the other card benefits, I think it’s easy to get outsized value.
