AS sends DL a file with all Mileage Plan updates every Monday. Yours should have been sent today. I'd give it a day or two for DL's systems to process it and then it should be in there.

However, apparently others have had trouble with getting DL to waitlist them for first class upgrades when status changes. You may need to remove your Mileage Plan number from your DL reservation and then re-add it. I'd do that probably on Wednesday and see if it properly says "Upgrade Requested" next to your flights.

Compensation for cancelled flight?
 

Used mileage points to fly 1st class RT PDX to LAS last week returning to PDX on Christmas day. Return flight from LAS was supposed to leave at 11:45 AM but was delayed due to mechanical issues. Around 1:30 I noticed the flight attendants had left the area and I assumed the flight would be cancelled soon. I called Alaska Air reservations and asked if they had first class seats available on the 4:25 flight. The agent said yes and I had her change my reservation to the later flight. The agent told me I was booked in seat 1D and to see the agent at the gate to get a new boarding pass. I walked over to the agent at the gate and he was in the process of selling two 1st class upgrades on the 4:25 flight to another customer. When he finished, he told me that I was not booked on the 4:25 flight as the telephone Alaska agent told me but I was still booked on the earlier flight. He also told me he just sold the last two 1st class seats on the later flight. A few minutes later they announced the 11:45 flight had been cancelled. I got a ticket on the 4:25 flight in coach. The 4:25 flight had mechanical problems as well and didn't leave until 6:00 PM. I had to share my coach seat with the fairly large (over 300lbs) lady sitting in the seat next to mine. So my flight left over six hours late on Christmas day due to mechanical problems, I missed dinner with friends, I paid for first class (in miles) but received a downgrade to coach (where I had to share my seat). To top things off I caught a nasty cold from the three people sitting behind me who were coughing the entire flight. What compensation should I ask for or will they offer me? Did Alaska Air know that I was a bad boy last year? Was this their way of putting coal in my stockings? Also, the airlines have sizers at the gates for carry on bags. Why don't they have sizers for people? Also, I don't understand why the Alaska Air agent at the gate was selling 1st class upgrades when it was obvious they were about to cancel a flight and would be displacing first class passengers. So people who paid for a full first class fair had their seats taken by people paying for the discounted last minute upgrade.

I <3 AS, but this is one area they totally suck. Their idea of generous compensation tops out at about 2,000 miles.

If the same thing had happened to you on CO, you would have received (I believe) a voucher for $200.

I was downgraded from an F award due to a mechanical a couple of years ago and got 6,250 miles back. :rolleyes:

If you call or write and are offered a paltry amount like that, I'd definitely push it up the food chain. AS needs to get on par with what their competitors are offering when they screw up.

Compensation for Cancelled Flight (Alaska Air Offer)
 

Here's the update on my Alaska Airlines post. I emailed them on Sunday, did not receive a quick response so I called on Wednesday. When I spoke with the agent on the phone she refunded 12,500 miles to my account for the downgrade from 1st class to coach and also gave me an additional 10,000 miles for the inconvenience of having to share my coach seat with the oversized lady sitting next to me. Today (Thursday) I received an apology email from Alaska Air customer service regarding the six hour delay on Christmas day due to their multiple mechanical issues. They credited an additional 10,000 miles to my account. So they ended up giving me 20,000 miles for the hassles of the day and 12,500 mile refund for the downgrade to coach for a total of 32,500 miles. Overall I'm satisfied with their response but I would'nt want to repeat that experience for 100,000 free miles.

Who did you call? I had a situation simlar to this and wrote in a letter in November, and haven't heard ANYTHING, then emailed in the same letter, and while I did get the automatic response saying I'd hear from them, (that was early December), I still have gotten no response. I'd like to reach the right department today if possible while I'm still MVPG before I go back to being a nothing to them. Thanks!

Alaska Airlines Customer Care Number
 

Called Customer Care. Number is on their web site under Contact info. Here's the number:

1-800-654-5669
8:00 a.m. - 5:45 p.m. (PT), Monday-Friday

Good luck.

A Little Update
 

A little update on my post from earlier today, I still haven't heard from anyone and I'm going to call in today, but just so I didn't make a complete fool of myself, I checked my balance in Mileage Plan and both my wife and I were given a 10,000 mile bonus, which was part of what I asked for to compensate us for our ordeal with QX in October. So, hopefully when I talk to customer service, they will help me with the other part of my compensation request and then I'll be a happy camper with AS/QX again. I love this forum! Thanks everybody.

Thats where you and I differ. 100K is almost enough for a business class ticket anywhere in the world. Id go though that any day :D

Dont laugh. Even experienced AS flyers have newbie questions. I have PDX-HNL-PDX-SEA booked. If i change my PDX-SEA segment do i risk my spot on the upgrade list for the segments left unchanged? Rather pay the extra $3 now then wait to do Same day change

Seems like (but not 100% certain) simple flight changes (at least those initiated by an AS CSR) without changing routings doesn't appear to cause tickets to be reissued (as it shouldn't, for the more technical reasons described in another recent thread). As such, I'd suspect you wouldn't lose your position on the waitlist for the other segments. Can't be 100% sure, though. All I know is that on a recent schedule change where I was rebooked onto a different SEA-PDX flight, I kept the same e-ticket numbers.

You're not changing a PDX-SEA leg, you're changing a HNL-PDX-SEA itinerary. If you do this online, your ticket will be reissued, and you will lose your place on the upgrade list.

What is your purchase date, and what is the date of the flight? If you're that worried about losing the upgrade, just hold on to what you got and SDC it.

Online, yes. But can a CSR change a leg without reissuing the ticket?

I would venture to guess that if you got an agent who knew SABRE, they could do it quite easily, since it's technically possible. Not sure if IMAGE will do it, though.

Interesting question.

Love your observation on "sharing seats" lol. PHX to SEA sitting next to Mr 350lbs with at least 75 lbs in my seat while he ate, coughed and sneezed food particles all over me was a real party :)~ 5 days of a nasty flu I caught from him was the capper!

Oh and welcome to Flyertalk and the Alaska Airlines forum TheCustomerAdvantage ^

Doesn't sound like fun :(

Million Milers
 

Does anyone know how many people are in the Million Miles club for Alaska

Wirelessly posted (beckoa\'s PWP wonderous poster: BlackBerry9000/4.6.0.304 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

IIRC between 100-300... The number has been increasing due to AS' expanded route network.

As of July 2010, AS was saying 200 total in the Million Miler club.

Crap i forgot about the 6 hour rule. I'm on the 9:30pm 1/25 and want to catch the 6:30am on 1/26. I'm connecting to the SEA-BOS flight on 1/26 on a different itin. Guess i will just have to make the change. luckily theres a ton of unassigned seats in F, good amount of U is available and a bunch of unassigned seats in Y.

Other option would be to pay an extra $50 and buy up to Value (U available) on the afternoon HNL-SEA direct return. That would be anti flyertalk to pay more for less miles

I am supremely excited about the existence of this thread; as someone who lurked mightily all of last summer (and felt grossly underqualified to post anything to any of the threads), I'm happy to see a "safe zone" where I can ask my boneheaded questions!

Here are a couple of things on my mind as I head into 2011:

1. I got charged my renewal fee for my AS Visa, but have not seen a companion fare credited to my account for this year. Has anyone else noticed a delay here? I'm not really in a huge rush, just curious mostly.
2. I'm looking at potentially doing some rewards travel on Cathay Pacific this year. Specifically, considering PDX -> KUL (Kuala Lumpur). And I'd like to go business class. This is quoted on Alaska's reward chart as being 100k miles. Does anyone more experienced have any advice on this? Is 100k a real number? Is Cathay Pacific's new business class slick? I'm also (for sure) doing PDX -> AMS in a few months and could use miles for that, but if Asia happens...it seems a better miles value.
3. It sure would be neat if the boardroom passes were a yearly perk instead of a one-timer on the Visa. I'm just saying! Also, am I a hopeless loser for being willing to pay $40 to get into the double-decker SEA boardroom if I have a many-hour layover (as I did on my way to Iceland a few weeks ago)? I find that $40 is cheaper than I'm really going to pay to sit around in a bar or whatever all day. I'm curious how often people actually pay to get BR access.

As an aside, I have had my life basically saved by Alaska/Horizon customer service via Twitter this year, multiple times. One standout occasion is when I left my camera on a QX flight into OAK. The @horizonair Twitter user handled my situation personally and made phone calls on my behalf (whereas the normal channels via the left-on-horizon-flight phone hotline and filling out a form on their Web site yielded me nada). Camera and I were happily reunited. My point being: If you use Twitter and have an AS/QX customer service issue, I highly recommend tweeting at the @alaskaAir or @horizonAir users. Very responsive.

Happy New Year!

Just stumbled upon this thread .... how great ^

Wish we had something like this in the UA MP forum.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Yep 100K is accurate. AS only has access to low level redemptions so once they sell out there is no option to pay additional points like others that have tierd redemption levels. CX seems to be pretty easy to find availability. I'm not sure how nice J is but they are currently in process of updating business class in 2011. It seems the upcoming new seats will be really nice. not sure of the timetable. I'm currently booked in May in F YYZ-HKG-DPS-HKG-LAX.

family of four SEA->MSP this summer for free?
 

First of all, let me say thanks for flyertalk and this thread- very helpful.

We don't fly very often so I'm not up on all the deals, but here's what I'm thinking from poking around this and other threads:

* 2 adults each get separate American Airlines credit cards with 75K signup bonus.
* Redeem each set of 75,000 American miles to get 2 Alaska tickets (I'm thinking we won't be able to get 4 25,000 mile seats for flights we want because they're so rare, but I would think we would be able to get 4 tickets out of 150,000 miles).

Are there traps/details here I should be aware of? Is this a waste of good miles? Put another way, is there an easier way to earn and redeem miles to get a family of four on an Alaska route this summer?

Thanks so much!

Welcome to FlyerTalk. The problem with this plan is that you're redeeming AA miles for AS tickets, and only the 25,000 mile tickets on AS are available with AA miles. Even if reward seats are available at a higher "cost" to people with AS miles, you won't be able to get them with your AA miles. Another option is for the two adults to get the AS VISA card. In addition to the sign-up miles, it comes with a yearly "companion" ticket where for $99 you can get a second, equal ticket (including First Class) on any AS fare. Go to alaskaair.com for more details. If you do this, you might have enough miles for 2 free tickets (from the 2 sign-up bonuses), and then would pay for one ticket (any price you can find) and a second ticket at $99.

The strategy works, if and only if, there is low Alaska availability for American to pull. From my own searching this week low availability on MSP-SEA disappears in early May at the start of cruise season.

Newbie question...
 

I've been MVP for going on ten years and gold for a couple years, but I have no idea how to determine my 'million mile' status. I've heard that there are benefits for reaching the million mile mark on AS, but I haven't been able to find any info on the website. Any ideas?

BTW: This forum RULES! I just joined today, but I've been reading posts for the last two hours and have learned a ton. I thought I was a savvy traveler, but the knowledge on this site has proven that I have a lot left to learn. Thanks very much to all the contributors!!!

Welcome to FT lairdgrainger! Glad to have you onboard ^

The Million Miler status bar will not appear in your account until you have flown at least 300,000 BIS [Butt In Seat] miles on Alaska/Horizon. Once that appears in your account, you will know where you stand :p

Basically, once you reach 1 million BIS miles on Alaska/Horizon you will be MVP Gold for life.

Big, big thanks! I have a long way to go, but at least I know now. Thanks again and big thanks to everyone who contributes to this site--it's fantastic!

Wirelessly posted (beckoa\'s PWP wonderous poster: BlackBerry9000/4.6.0.304 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

Yes welcome to Flyertalk and the Alaska Airlines forum. One other thing to check your quest for 1 million flown miles is to call Customer Care. They can tell you where you're at.

Million Miles
 

Has anyone heard now that there is the MVP Gold 75K if the million miler club will be 75K for life?

There's been no announcement, and I suspect AS will reserve 75K for those who qualify annually.

Having not flown with elite status (MVP) before, I was wondering:

1. If I miss the boarding call for MVP passengers (Zone 2 on DL), can I use the carpeted lane on AS/QX or the Sky Priority lane on DL, or do I have to wait in the general boarding line?

2. If I get an upgrade, can I use the express security lines?

MVP is not SkyPriority so that is a negative. I don't believe that lane is officially to be used when Zone 2 is called.

The exact criteria vary by airport and sometimes even the checkpoint. I can't think of one where a F boarding pass will not gain admittance. As long as the BP says F you are good to go.

The AS system airports info is located here: http://www.alaskaair.com/as/www2/hel...ress-Lines.asp

*Deleted

And for Delta: Delta Frequent Flyer Security Lines

The site says:

I feel dense for having to ask this (not a newbie here) but in general how do I determine from home which gate a flight arrived at today? I know I can get the departure gate using the Flight Status feature at the AS website but I don't see the arrival gate there.

I know I've looked this info up before but can't for the life of me remember where.

Thanks.

It is sometimes posted on flightaware.com or flightstats.com, but not always.

You can also sometimes check the website of the actual airport. ANC actually has an online version of their terminal arrival/departure status monitors; some other airports may have something similar.

Thanks jackal. I'll give those a try.

I believe this was asked at an ANC MVPG lunch, and, as I recall, the answer was that the 1 million miler club will remain at MVPG for life, not 75K.

Not that anyone will EVER achieve it on the AS route network, but no mention of 2 million miles equaling MVPG75K? ;)

Alaska MVP gold status (for a fee)
 

This may not be the place or the right question for my first time here but I will try anyway. I have seen people offering to get you MVP gold status for a fee. My question is, is this possible and if so how does it work and are there any problems for me if I do this. The only reason I am considering this is that I just missed MVP status this year and I can not imagine flying without it :D.

Thank you.