Originally Posted by hand_solo

This is my 2nd time flying Alaska (first time being maybe 10 years ago), so I was not aware how terrible AS' IT system is. I booked an AS flight that was sold as a AA codeshare, since I fly AA most of the time. I had intended to buy a seat upgrade for Premium Class. The Alaska Air app shows PC seats available, and lets me pick one and proceed all the way through payment screen. But when I try to make a payment, it fails with some generic error message. I'm also able to pull up the reservation on AS' website, which shows all PC seats as greyed out. I called AS customer service, and they basically told me "as a for-profit business, we would love to take your money, but our IT system sucks. So you can only buy seat upgrades if you booked the flight as an AS flight." I was flabbergasted at how bad AS's IT system is. My question is: is there another way I can purchase a seat upgrade? Can I do it at the airport at AS' counter? Or some ther way? I could cancel, but since it's a non-refundable flight, I would only get AA credits, right?

Originally Posted by VegasGambler

These sorts of issues are common with codeshares. It's not unique to AS. I would recommend avoiding codeshares wherever possible (on any airline). Even if "standard" issues like this don't show up, you are likely to get bounced back and forth between the marketing and operating carriers if anything goes wrong.