[Rant coming...]

I just don't get it. IME, Alaska is woefully inadequate when it comes to partner award inventory, especially in upper classes of service, which I think most of us would probably be searching for. I've been struggling to find AS partner awards (F or J) over the Atlantic. Pretty much zilch. After the AF and KL loss, virtually nothing was done to restore those, and now there is "booking failure" with FI. AA won't allot any J or F seats over the water, and BA charges hundreds in fees (and often won't put you up front even if you pay for it). DE has almost no available business seats that I can find, and when you do find one, they often make you fly some silly itinerary like SEA-GEG-PDX-FRA. EK is sometimes an option, but at high-dollar, high mileage, and very lengthy travel time (I love to fly, but don't want to spend 35 hours -each way- of my vacation just getting there...)

AS agents at the "Partner Desk" always say they can only see what we can see - so I'm not sure why they are even there. One nice lady I spoke to said she didn't know about the FI booking failure (I had to tell her), and that's been that way for a long time now. If this was a tech-related *revenue* issue, you can be sure that AS would have fixed it yesterday! The other line I hear when I do call is, "Well that's all the seats they allot us...". Hm. I think it's time that AS fixes this and starts doing business with partners who really are partners, provide some decent inventory, and get their computers to talk to each other.

And don't get me started on the "companion fare" thing....

Sorry for the tirade.