Alaska Companion Fare: Wallet Funds Restored for Hawaiʻi Flyers

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⏱ 4 min read

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In This Article

01What Alaska Just Changed 02Does This Affect Hawaiʻi Travelers? 03Two Different Companion Perks, Don't Mix Them Up 04Here's the Move 05Scottie's Take

Quick answer: yes, Alaska has quietly restored the ability to pay for Companion Fare bookings with your Wallet funds. If you have been sitting on canceled-flight credits or a gift certificate balance in your Atmos Wallet, that money can once again go toward the buy-one-get-one Companion Fare. This is an Alaska and Atmos Rewards change, not a change to the Hawaiian Airlines credit card, but if you fly out of the islands it still lands close to home.

What Alaska Just Changed

When Alaska moved everything onto the new Atmos Rewards platform last fall, a couple of things broke on the Companion Fare. You could no longer book multi-city or open-jaw trips with it, and you could no longer apply Wallet funds to any part of the booking. Alaska characterized the old flexibility as a "loophole" and said it was looking at bringing some of it back.

They have now done exactly that. Multi-city Companion Fare bookings returned a little earlier this year, and Wallet funds are the latest piece to come back. When you check out with a Companion Fare, your Wallet balance shows up as a payment option again.

Frequent Miler, which first reported the restoration, called the original decision to disable Wallet funds "a bizarre, consumer-unfriendly move," and I could not agree more. via Frequent Miler

Does This Affect Hawaiʻi Travelers?

Here is the part I wanted to fact-check twice for you, because it is easy to get twisted. This news is about the Alaska Companion Fare, the roughly $99 (from about $121 once taxes are in) benefit that comes with the Atmos Rewards Ascent and Atmos Rewards Business Visa cards. It is not a change to the Hawaiian Airlines credit card's companion discount.

That said, it hits home for us in a few very real ways:

• Your Companion Fare works on Hawaiian metal. The Atmos Companion Fare is valid for round-trip coach on Alaska-operated or Hawaiian-operated flights. So a Honolulu to mainland round-trip flown on Hawaiian still qualifies, and you can now put Wallet funds toward it again.
• Those parked credits are finally usable. Locals tend to rack up Wallet balances from canceled or changed trips and from gift certificates. Until now, none of that could touch a Companion Fare booking. That wall is down.
• It stacks with the routes you already fly. If your regular pattern is HNL to the West Coast and back, this is exactly the kind of trip the Companion Fare was built for, and now the payment side is flexible again.

One thing this is not: an interisland play. For neighbor-island hops, your discount lanes are the Huakaʻi by Hawaiian codes and the quarterly neighbor-island discount that comes with the Bank of Hawaii Hawaiian card, not the Companion Fare. Keep those buckets separate in your head.

Two Different Companion Perks, Don't Mix Them Up

A lot of kamaʻāina hold the Hawaiian Airlines World Elite Mastercard from Bank of Hawaii, so let me draw a clean line between the two companion benefits floating around right now:

• Atmos Companion Fare (Ascent / Business Visa): the "pay from about $121" buy-one-get-one fare. This is the one that just got Wallet funds restored. Valid on Alaska or Hawaiian-operated flights.
• Bank of Hawaii Hawaiian Airlines Mastercard: gives an annual $100 companion discount off a round-trip coach fare, plus a one-time 50 percent off for new cardholders. That is a flat discount code, not the $99 Companion Fare, and it was never the thing tied to this Wallet change.

So if your companion perk is the Bank of Hawaii card's $100 discount, nothing about your benefit changed with this news. If your companion perk is the Atmos Companion Fare, you just got more flexible.

Good to Know

Since the merger, Hawaiian card companion codes and Huakaʻi discount codes now deposit into your Atmos Rewards account and are redeemed at AlaskaAir.com. Same perks, new front door.

Here's the Move

If you hold an Atmos Ascent or Business Visa and you have Wallet funds parked from a canceled trip or a certificate, this is the moment to actually use them. Line up a round-trip you would fly anyway, ideally on a Hawaiian or Alaska flight home, and let that Companion Fare do the heavy lifting while your Wallet balance covers the rest.

If you are still deciding which card belongs in your wallet as a local, it is worth comparing the Atmos cards against the Bank of Hawaii option before your next anniversary. I break the trade-offs down in our guide to the best cards for Hawaiʻi travelers.

Scottie's Take

I am happy to see this one come back. Locking Wallet funds out of Companion Fares never made sense, because that is already your money sitting with the airline. Making you re-spend cash to use a credit you earned from a canceled flight was the kind of small friction that quietly chips away at trust, and Alaska walking it back is a good sign about where they want the combined program to go.

For us in the islands, the headline is simple: the Atmos Companion Fare is flexible again, it works on Hawaiian-operated flights, and your Bank of Hawaii card's separate $100 companion discount is untouched. If you have Wallet funds gathering dust, go put them to work on a trip home.

Are you sitting on Wallet funds you have been trying to use up? Drop a comment and let me know what route you are eyeing, or reach out and I will help you map it.

A hui hou, Scottie.