What's fascinating here is the route makeup. Before VX or HA, Alaska's average stage length was 2.5 to 3 hours (with flights shorter and longer than that). Then they started a few transcons averaging 5.5 hours. Then they acquired VX with a lot of transcons and some short (<500 mile) intra-CA, CA to LAS) flights and a few mid-cons like CA to ORD and DAL. Then they acquired HA with transcons and long haul flying (Asia etc.) as well as island hops <500 miles.

Pax in Alaska, California, and Hawaii will have a difficult choice to make, as these markets have pax with both short haul and long haul needs, and booking on Alaskaair.com yields fares on partners that are hundreds more than booking on the partner directly (domestically on AA and internationally).

I think it will come down to what the conversion will be for booking a revenue flight on a partner site if you choose spend. If the conversion is decent, then spend may make up for the lack of 500 minimums, because any fare over $100 will earn more than 500 status points on thise <500-mile flights.

But if the conversion isn't good, Atmos won't be attractive for the short haul <500-mile flyer who also travels long haul overseas (even if just for a vacation or two).

People won't choose spend if their 10,000-16,000 mile roundtrip to Asia or Europe only yields 3,000-5,000 status points, so then they have to look at how much they'll lose on their <500 flights for choosing miles flown.