My wife and I have had this card (actually two accounts) for a number of years. Then again, we bank of B of A and have for years. We're in the Phoenix area (and also have the USAirways B of A cards.
The companion tickets work for us because we've good friends in Portland. This year we will be using the companion ticket deal (1st class leftover) for a RT Portland/Kona (we've a timeshare there).
In theory we could have used the companion ticket for PHX/Portland/Kona and back with layovers in each direction (Alaska is good about the layovers with the companion tickets). However, while the outbound flight (Phoenix to Portland) is at a decent time, Alaska currently only has one Portland/Phoenix flight and we're not going to get up that early in the morning for it.
Then again, we can use our USAirways companion ticket for the Phoenix/Portland RT.
One thing I'd note to the nay sayers regarding the Alaska companion ticket -- not only can you use it for trips flights to Alaska and Hawaii -- you can't do that with most of the other companion ticket setups and certainly not with USAirways), but also, taking advantage of the companion ticket with Alaska is a piece of cake.
With USAirways, you MUST handle the reservation by phone, and then you need to send the certificate in. That is one pain of a way to handle this compared to Alaska where you can handle the entire transaction online.
Since both USAirways and Alaska are set up with Bank of America -- it is NOT the bank that's getting in the way of a rational way to handle the companion ticket, it is USAirways. Personally, I'd love to see that change with the merger -- we shall see.