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Hawaii Traveler: Earning Status, ATMOS Rewards part IV

Posted on March 25, 2026

Part of a series: ATMOS REWARDS: PART I | ATMOS REWARDS PART II | ATMOS REWARDS PART III | ATMOS PART IV

Focusing on Silver Status

For a Hawaii resident who travels at least (a) once a year to Japan, or (b) twice a year to the mainland, or (c) more than 15 trips to the neighbor islands a year, it may be worth getting to at least silver status on Atmos.

The benefit of sliver status is a free checked bag, the opportunity to be upgraded on domestic flights, and the ability to change your ticket to any same route flight on the same day (e.g. neighbor island, LAX or SEA). The cost of leveling up is the acquisition of an ATMOS Summit VISA, which costs $495 a year, plus spending the difference in EQM (status-qualifying points) needed on the card.

NOTE: The Summit VISA also includes additional perks like 2 Alaska branded lounge passes per quarter, but Alaska lounges are only located at select locations like Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles and San Francisco, Anchorage and New York. The card also includes priority check-in, extra luggage for you and companions, boarding group 2, delay credits, and every 4 years a global entry or TSA pre-check credit, among other things.

For sharing points, the ATMOS Summit VISA also allows transfers between up to 10 additional people.

The most important thing that the ATMOS Summit VISA includes is 10,000 EQM on your anniversary date. That’s half of the 20,000 you need in a calendar year to get to silver status. To illustrate the three scenarios, here’s what you would need to get to status. The Summit VISA will get you 10,000 of the additional points needed. For the person taking two trips a year to Los Angeles, they achieve silver status after taking the two trips in a calendar year and reaching the anniversary date.

For the others, they need to spend two dollars on the card to get one EQM to reach the goal. For the person taking one trip to Haneda (Japan), they need to spend 2 x 2,284 on the card, or $4,568.

ScenarioRoutePoints per Round TripTrips per YearTotal Status Points EarnedAdditional Points Needed
(a) Japan TripHNL – HND7,71617,71612,284
(b) West CoastHNL – LAX5,112210,2249,776
(c) Inter-islandHNL – ITO432156,48013,520

It is important to note that the 10,000 EQM for holding a ATMOS Summit VISA occurs on the anniversary date. This means that if you currently hold Silver status because you were grandfathered in under the Pualani Elite plan, you would want to get the Summit VISA soon. If you don’t earn enough in 2026, your status will end at the end of January 2027. If you get the card now, you will get the 10,000 status points early next year and it will put you on the path to silver. You keep the status throughout the year, and then again for the full next year in 2028.

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