Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan - SEA/ORD schedule

I'm working on booking a flight for Nov and noticed that the 6PM-ish flight from SEA to ORD is gone. As is the 8AM return. Were these part of a seasonal schedule? I had finally figured out that they were my best bet for getting upgraded to F. Which may be why they're gone.

Also, Seat Counter makes the other flights look surprisingly open. Is this a seasonal reality as well? I know that tourists might not want to go to Chicago in November, but for business travelers I can't imagine much of a travel adjustment based on a little cold and windy weather.

Any advice on which of the remaining flights have the best chance of an MVP upgrade would also be appreciated. Or a redirect to another thread (I did search). Thanks.

I'm working on booking a flight for Nov and noticed that the 6PM-ish flight from SEA to ORD is gone. As is the 8AM return. Were these part of a seasonal schedule? I had finally figured out that they were my best bet for getting upgraded to F. Which may be why they're gone.

Also, Seat Counter makes the other flights look surprisingly open. Is this a seasonal reality as well? I know that tourists might not want to go to Chicago in November, but for business travelers I can't imagine much of a travel adjustment based on a little cold and windy weather.

Any advice on which of the remaining flights have the best chance of an MVP upgrade would also be appreciated. Or a redirect to another thread (I did search). Thanks.

Somewhere in FT it was mentioned that this frequency was shifted to PDX-ORD to allow that route to resume...

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I too had heard that PDX-ORD came at the expense of one of the SEA-ORD roundtrips. I wish they'd do the same for PDX-ANC in the winter.

PDX-ORD came at the expense of a PDX-DEN.

In my experience, the reduction in AS's ORD-SEA flights hurts AA-AS connections through ORD. I booked a MSN-(AE)-ORD-(AS)-SEA flight for Dec 22 last month. At the time, there were three flights (early morning, late morning, and mid-afternoon) available; now, there's just the late morning: AS apparently doesn't sell the AE connection to the afternoon ORD-SEA flight (and the morning AS ORD-SEA flight no longer exists).

When this change was loaded last weekend, AS rebooked me on an impossible connection (arriving in ORD at 19:55 for a 19:15 ORD-SEA flight). It wound up being a bit of a saga to get Alaska to re-ticket me on the afternoon flight I originally purchased. The flights I booked are both still scheduled for my travel dates, even though Alaska no longer sells them.

It would be a shame if flying Alaska to Seattle is no longer practical from here in Madison, and I assume these cuts must hurt Alaska's AA feed from other cities in ORD too. Indeed, oddly, for a random date in January (1/6/2010), the nonstop ORD-PDX isn't even bookable from MSN, even though there is a quite satisfactory AE flight that could feed ORD-PDX.

Are we just unlucky out of MSN? Checking a random other city (DTW), I find similarly limited AS connections through ORD.

PDX-ORD came at the expense of a PDX-DEN.

Ah that may be correct... ;) (It was still kinda early for me when I did my original post)

But i did notice AS cut that route down...

Ah that may be correct... ;) (It was still kinda early for me when I did my original post)

But i did notice AS cut that route down...

Whether coincidental or not, the schedule for SEA-ORD changed when PDX-ORD inventory came online. I had a flight on the SEA-ORD flight that got cut this Christmas, fortunately that allowed me to change to the direct ORD-PDX flight. ^

Whether coincidental or not, the schedule for SEA-ORD changed when PDX-ORD inventory came online. I had a flight on the SEA-ORD flight that got cut this Christmas, fortunately that allowed me to change to the direct ORD-PDX flight. ^

Glad it worked out... nonstop is nice, except for fewer miles ;)