Hi: I'm new to this forum. By way of introduction, I'm a former UAL person (million mile flyer, hence lifetime Premier Exec and lifetime Red Carpet room member) but, living in Seattle, I've been gradually shifting over to Alaska -- I've been Gold for the past five years or so and this year I'm Gold 75.

Most of my flying is for business, and my schedules are pretty uncertain. For this reason, I always buy fully refundable tickets, and almost always buy full-fare first class.

Here is my problem: because my schedules are so uncertain, I often make separate, one-way multiple reservations for a particular trip (e.g., LAX-SEA at 12:00 and LAX-SEA at 5:35) and then cancel whichever one I don't use. I've been doing this for years without any problems. Suddenly I have email and voicemail messages saying that I can't do that, and that Alaska will cancel one of my reservations unless I do so myself. Customer service says, "it's a computer thing; we can't do anything about it."

I find this annoying. There are, of course, about fifteen ways to game this rule, all of them hassles for me and/or money losers for Alaska. For instance, I could just make alternate reservations back on other carriers.

Has anyone else experienced this problem? Thanks for any suggestions or advice