Originally Posted by
Domo5
[MENTION=261295]skimthetrees[/MENTION] - This is the first time I'm hearing about this 14-day stopover rule, but this definitely makes sense - I moved the NRT-TPE leg to within 14 days and the booking engine allowed it. I followed your suggestion and booked the trip. Will call in and go from there. Thank you very much for educating me on this!
You are welcome!
I see this going one of two ways:
1) Agents have been informed there is now a 14 day max stopover, in which case you will be out of luck.
2) No communication to agents (typical), in which case you can ask for a supervisor to manually book it (if there is award space to change to). You may have to push it. Be prepared to prove award space shows for the new date (on the AS website) and push for them to try manually booking it for you if the system errors out. There is still a fair chance they try to blow you off, but there is a fair chance of success if you are polite and prepared with your facts and argument, that it can be done.
Either way, please let us know how it goes. It would be especially interesting to know whether or not Alaska has communicated a new non publicly disclosed policy to their agents. I suspect this was meant to be a new policy, but if no one has documented it or informed the booking agents, will they enforce it (if they don't know it exists)?
If you get an answer that it cannot be done but they do not quote you a specific reason why (like a new 14 day policy that has been documented to them but not the public) then I suggest trying again later with a different agent (or 2 or 3).