Looks like a conference I had to attend in San Diego at the end of the month is about to cancel, and my spouse was coming with me on a companion cert. The tickets were purchased months ago so only the new waiver option would apply. I had open questions which I direct messaged to Alaska Airlines on Twitter and got the following responses, which may help others here.
Q: Travel begins before the March 31 cutoff, but the return is April 1. I'm assuming the waiver would still apply because the outbound portion of the roundtrip ticket is before the waiver cutoff date?
A: Yes, the waiver will apply if the round trip on the itinerary starts prior to April.
Q: Because my spouse and I are on the same PNR and I paid for both my ticket and the companion fare, I'd be the one getting the flight credit for future travel in My Wallet. I'm assuming that I would get full dollar credit for both of our tickets on the PNR (even though one was a companion fare), but the companion certificate would be lost?
A: Yes, you would receive a credit for the full dollar amount in the form of a credit. To avoid losing your companion fare, you can choose to save the value on the ticket, without depositing it to your wallet. That way when you rebook, you can just use the ticket value and companion fare for the new booking.
Q: If I do decide to save the value on the ticket instead of in MyWallet, does the fee waiver travel with it? In other words, if I choose to use the companion cert and related value later, will there still be no change fee?
A: Yes, there will still be no change fee applied if you choose to save the value to the ticket.
If I ultimately decide to split the PNR so only the companion cert and its value are saved to one of the two tickets and the regular non-discounted ticket's value is deposited in My Wallet, that will require either calling or texting a CSR. But I may not bother, as the companion cert's original expiration date may make it a brown banana. Better to get the dollar credit at this point.
Alaska Airlines responded very quickly and thoroughly on Twitter, too. It was impressive, and appreciated.
Last edited by Seattlenerd; Mar 10, 2020 at 2:48 pm
Reason: Added AS' responses to the questions