Reading this thread has helped me better understand why I am not seeing any U availability on alaskaair.com. I too recently contacted customer service about this and was told that once seat blocking ends that U availability should come back. I've been flying all throughout the pandemic for critical personal need and just made Gold 75k for the year. I'm looking forward to planning trips next year, but enjoy the challenge of finding flights I can use my guest upgrades on. With no availability system wide, I guess I'll just keep my money for the time being then.... :td:

When Covid-19 first kicked off and everyone was canceling their trips. I secured a first class round trip for two from Nome to Honolulu in February 2021 using guest upgrades and a companion fare for less than $950. So maybe I'm part of the problem! :p

Someone above already mentioned it, but its time for AS to send elites and email telling them what the plan is moving forward. No change fees. Useless guest upgrades. What a time to be an elite....:o

Oh, I'm sorry I'm not an AS apologist. You do not need to be C Suite to interview candidates and be able to grade simple math assessments... any of my senior analysts could do that. Can't remember the last time someone said: "Girl, I can't wait to buy AS stock!" lol

Agreed. Unfortunately, many FTers seem to struggle mightily with acceptance...

Regards

Nobody, including the D&O of AS have any idea what the future holds. That is because it is tied to the pandemic and the economy as affected by the pandemic. All of this makes RM/IM close to impossible and thus, on AS as with most carriers, it is all close to last minute.

This includes frequencies and scheduling. The further out you look, the less you should expect to see discount (including U) pricing because it is too fuzzy to determine whether AS can sell the space. Be assured that if AS can sell all available seats at full F pricing, it will do so.
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If there is a 100% effective vaccine which is administered to 100% of the population 6 weeks from now, you can expect a return to some form of normalcy and predictability. Until then, I would deal with each itinerary on its own terms and not moan about what the future portends beyond the next few weeks. It is either going to get better, get worse or stay the same. Can 100% guarantee that.

But they aren't selling the space... routes like FLL SEA regularly see one-way "I" fares for about $312-$349 these days and even then F goes out with empty seats. However, I do think AS should limit U space to see if they can get people to pay for First Class especially now that they are offering significantly lower F fares on some markets and the difference between the lowest instant upgrade coach fare and discounted first is minimal.

Thank you for your critical contributions and congratulations on attaining 75K for the first time. It is unfortunate that the 50% EQM bonus that made that possible & the 50K RDM bonus is overshadowed by a temporary inability to utilize an instrument that has 15 months of validity and can be applied to an itinerary up to 26 months from now.

James

I bought some ALK in April and it’s up 20%.

I'm a simple person. I just thank God that Alaska is still flying and still doing a great job. I will use my GGU's when I can, but honestly at this point with the limited F service it isn't that big a deal.

So long as priority for upgrades is linked to status, AS is far better off under these circumstances, holding UG's to the gate. One never knows who will pay for a seat and, with seats blocked more often than not, it does not take many sales to fill an F cabin.

The time to sell at reduced fare buckets (including redemption) is closer in when loads are more apparent.

Wow. Thanks for that, James.



I don’t owe you an explanation. But I’ve flown 10 round trips from Nome to Minneapolis this year because I have a sick child being treated at Children’s Minnesota. And it’s only been 10 trips because I couldn’t travel April - May because everything was locked down. I pay on average $700-$900 round trip. That’s $8,000 in revenue for my Gold 75k status. And I have numerous more trips yet this year, including one discounted (I) first class trip that wasn’t that discounted, if you know what I mean. I’ll probably spend $10k this year with Alaska Air. And I was Gold last year. MVP the year before. I’m not some blood sucker making 75k status on mileage runs that cost a fraction of pennies per mile, so take your tone elsewhere, okay?



I could fly ANC to MSP on Delta for less money and get there quicker, but I don’t. Because #IFlyAlaska.



All I mean to say is I’m ready to spend money today for future travel next year. It would be cool if the reservation system could let you use an upgrade code and if the seat becomes available in the future you would get first dibs. If the seat doesn’t ever open, you can get the code back. Or not, I don’t care. I just want a shot at an upgrade to use these otherwise worthless codes on. /shrugs

Having discounted first class fares available to everyone in liu of bring able to utilize GGUs is a devaluation to elite status. Elite status is valuable among other things for complimentary upgrades.

Prior, you had to earn the GGU to be able to apply them to a higher eligible fare bucket, which was cheaper than First. Now, anyone can buy discounted first, when it’s even available, and U space is virtually non existent.

So depending on the specific flight and route some people can do better under these new circumstances, but others are left out to dry.

As for the comments by certain regulars on FT, they seem to know exactly how to word their comments so it’s generally not against any FT rules yet still conveys their negative or demeaning intent.

It would be nice to see people behave civilly and with respect for all. We all have something to contribute.

Not scientific but I feel like prior to our current era most of my GGUs were used when ExpertFlyer let me know space opened up. For some routes there seemed to be a sweet spot 45 days out. But that might just be bias based on some lucky chances. I can only think of a handful of times where they were used at booking. That said I’ve not been flying so I am not sure if space is getting released.

Has the reissue of 4 new GGU on Jan 1, 2021 (with expiration of 12/31/2021) been confirmed officially? I have 8 GGU expiring at the end of 2020 and with absolutely no ability to use them due to complete lack of U inventory, I feel like I'm getting shafted by AS. 4 new GGU, assuming that U inventory eventually exceeds ZERO, would take away half of the sting.

tbh, i wouldn't mind if AS converts these GGUs to AS Lounge day passes as a nice gesture for zeroing out U space.

But at the end of the day, I wouldn't be mad if they don't do anything. I'm glad that they stand to weather this pandemic out and I'll be able to use my miles to fly OW partners :)

I agree with you. I have 4 GGU's expiring this year (themselves a replacement for cancelled Hawaii flight bookings in April of this year), and I've been trying to apply them to trips I'm booking in Q1 of next year but of course I've now discovered this thread that explains why I couldn't find a single upgradeable flight. Given that the border restrictions CAN/US are extended at least through November, sometime in the early part of 2021 is the earliest I can use them. If AS decides to limit their use until close-in or day of departure upgrade requests etc. due to blackout of U inventory, then they need to be extended.