Gold Guest Upgrades expiration date rules
 

Did a search of the forum, and reviewed TC's online, and couldn't locate this answer, so am asking.
With the electronic gold certs, how is or should the expiration date be interpreted? I have some that will expire 12.31 of this year. Does that mean I have to book travel (subject to U space), then click to 'use' them by that date, or do my dates of travel have to be prior to 12.31?

In the past with the paper certs, since they had to be collected (ostensibly) by the agent at the airport, with the electronic ones, once you use them their gone. So if I'm looking at travel in early 2013, can I use the certs in my account today?

Wirelessly posted (beckoa's PWP wondrousdevice3.0: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9810; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0.0.583 Mobile Safari/534.11+)

I think it is a 'use by' date but haven't tried to use in 2013. Good question though.

A further inquiry regarding these certs: If your status drops to MVP from MVPG when you fly in 2013, having booked while an MVPG in the current year. Can you still use the certs?

As they are meant for friend/family of the Gold, you don't have to have ANY status to use those certs.

I believe the expiration date on the new electronic certs is a "use by" expiration, not a "travel by". If you book a flight now for sometime in 2013 and the "system" allows you to apply your 2012 cert to it and upgrades you and you get a seat assigned, you should be good to good. I can't (or don't want to) believe that on January 1 you would blindly get thrown back into coach.

I called the Gold Desk twice, and got the same answer twice: Travel must be completed by 12.31.2012.

Unless Missy knows or can confirm otherwise, that is our answer. There is no reason or way to 'try this out', since you have to go through the entire booking process - including paying the fare - before you get to select the option of using the MVP Gold Guest Upgrade and whether it will all you to do so.

Missy - do you know differently?

If someone was really interested to know, they could book and pay for a qualifying flight in 2013, try to use the Guest Upgrade, then use the 24 hour window to cancel the entire booking.

That is exactly how the paper certs were used. Electronic certs would be no different. Each paper cert had a code on it (which was almost never entered), but still the same concept. The only real difference is that there were A LOT of paper certs given out toward the end of each year by people (like me) that never used them. I've used one e-cert so far this year.

It will be interesting to see how we handle them this year.

I believe that you would use the code (non-reusable) and would need to call and request a new code if you did this. Not sure it's worth the hassle.

Yes and I just honored two dear friends by bumping them into FC for their KOA trip next month....feels good to do good.

I actually could use up to 6 of these, if anybody out there doesn't plan on using them by year end. Apologies if this should be on coupon connection, but not sure if the ecerts would mean much to folks who don't pay close attention to AS.

Agreed. It seems like it would be much simpler to spell it out more clearly on the website, which makes precisely zero mention of expiration dates.

After a discussion at home last night, we have since recalled a situation where we provided a family member with a paper F upgrade certificate. Her itinerary saddled the new year (outbound prior to 12/31 expiration, and return afterwards). When making the reservation online with the phone rep and after giving the code, she indicated it could not be used for the return portion. Thus, I'm not sure how you were able to do it, since you had to phone in. Every time I did so, the agent always asked me for the code (which contained the expiry date), and all but twice was I actually asked for the paper cert itself.

As such, I'm 98% resigned to the expiration date being a 'travel by' date, not a 'use by' date.

Bumping as a request for an update. Note that the 2012 giveaway thread mentioned that the "expiration" date is really a "use by" instead of a "travel by" deadline. Has Alaska officially written anywhere that the same is true for 2013?

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/19850879-post25.html

It clearly states "Expires 12 31 2012" so they disappear after that.

Unless they are laminated! :D