Instant Alaska Atmos Silver (oneworld Ruby) status

Alaska Airlines has long offered various fast-track opportunities to Silver status through its partners. In the past, there have also been quite a few little “loopholes” that accidentally made these offers available to everyone. Now there is another one, although this time there is a bit of a barrier to entry, so I thought I’d still share it with you. Many thanks to reader @榕龙 for the tip.

This time, the partner in question is AT&T, and you can find the promotion page here. In short, AT&T employees can register to receive 180 days of Alaska Atmos Silver status, along with a challenge to retain or upgrade the status. Verification is done using an AT&T corporate email address.

However, the accepted email domains include both @att.com and @att.net — and the latter can actually be registered by anyone!

Simply head to the AT&T website and choose to create a new email address. There are two domains to choose from, one of which is @att.net:

There is a catch, though: you must have a US mobile phone number to receive the SMS code when registering, so there is still a barrier to entry.

The website’s firewall also seems to be fairly strict. I initially couldn’t get past the next step at all; after turning on a VPN I finally managed to register, only to find that I couldn’t log in afterwards no matter what I tried. What a pain! That said, it seems that most people have been able to get it working.

Once you have the email address sorted, the rest is straightforward. Register on the Alaska Airlines website and verify your account through the email.

Alaska’s Silver status is equivalent to oneworld Ruby, so when flying partners such as Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, British Airways and Qatar Airways, you can enjoy benefits including free seat selection, priority check-in at business-class counters and priority boarding.

The benefits aren’t particularly extensive, but they are quite useful. Being able to select a seat for free seven days before departure on British Airways, for example, is pretty handy.

And if you actually have the opportunity to fly Alaska Airlines, completing the flight challenge during those 180 days can allow you to retain your status or move up to a higher tier. For example, four round trips can earn you Gold status, equivalent to oneworld Sapphire.