Jan 5, 2016, 10:05 am
Last edit by: dgreen12
Welcome to the Alaska Airlines Newbie Lounge Thread for 2016!
Anyone is welcome to ask anything, even the most basic questions, in this thread without having to fear a snarky response. In this thread, there's no such thing as a dumb question--we were all new to Alaska Airlines, FlyerTalk, and even the whole idea of mileage programs once and needed some help navigating the ropes. We're here to help you do just that!
That said, if you want to do a little reading to see if your question has been previously discussed, links to some of the most common and extensive topics in this forum are listed in our FAQ thread -- click here to check it out.
Special care will be given in this thread to trying to provide answers in a clear manner with minimal use of acronyms and jargon.
If you need to contact someone for help, here's a current list of our forum's team:
Ambassadors (Our Greeters--members who have specifically volunteered to welcome and mentor newbies and monitor this thread):
ANC RED-EYE
baliktad
beckoa
golfingboy
Moderators (Our Janitors--members who have volunteered to do housekeeping/keep the forum in order)
Cholula
jackal
You are welcome to send a private message to any of these individuals for assistance, but you'll generally get a faster response and broader palette of answers if you simply post your inquiry here in this thread.
Note to FlyerTalk members who enjoy the ability to take advantage of loopholes--if someone posts something that exposes information you'd rather not be public, please remember this is a Flame-Free thread, and harsh or snarky posts are not permitted. Although FlyerTalk itself does not censor posts that share information, members are free to edit their own posts to remove information. If you wish to request any poster to remove information they have shared publicly, please do so politely and respectfully.
Welcome, and we look forward to providing any assistance we can!
~the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan forum team~
For the 2015 version of this thread, please click here
Anyone is welcome to ask anything, even the most basic questions, in this thread without having to fear a snarky response. In this thread, there's no such thing as a dumb question--we were all new to Alaska Airlines, FlyerTalk, and even the whole idea of mileage programs once and needed some help navigating the ropes. We're here to help you do just that!
That said, if you want to do a little reading to see if your question has been previously discussed, links to some of the most common and extensive topics in this forum are listed in our FAQ thread -- click here to check it out.
Special care will be given in this thread to trying to provide answers in a clear manner with minimal use of acronyms and jargon.
If you need to contact someone for help, here's a current list of our forum's team:
Ambassadors (Our Greeters--members who have specifically volunteered to welcome and mentor newbies and monitor this thread):
ANC RED-EYE
baliktad
beckoa
golfingboy
Moderators (Our Janitors--members who have volunteered to do housekeeping/keep the forum in order)
Cholula
jackal
You are welcome to send a private message to any of these individuals for assistance, but you'll generally get a faster response and broader palette of answers if you simply post your inquiry here in this thread.
Note to FlyerTalk members who enjoy the ability to take advantage of loopholes--if someone posts something that exposes information you'd rather not be public, please remember this is a Flame-Free thread, and harsh or snarky posts are not permitted. Although FlyerTalk itself does not censor posts that share information, members are free to edit their own posts to remove information. If you wish to request any poster to remove information they have shared publicly, please do so politely and respectfully.
Welcome, and we look forward to providing any assistance we can!
~the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan forum team~
For the 2015 version of this thread, please click here
2016 Alaska Airlines *FLAME-FREE* Q&A thread: all welcome, new and old!
Mar 14, 2016, 12:37 pm
#346
Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 1,747
Does AS have ANY plans to fix their website for booking rewards. The current system is absolutely USELESS. There are rewards that you find that aren't there.
You have to go all of the way through the booking process to get them. For instance, there are first class on Qantas flights listed in the fall and have been for months. How many hundreds of people have wasted their time trying to book this?
There's no way to filter out mixed flights from being show on the calendar view or day view
There's no way of filtering out different airlines on the calendar view
There's no way to filter to just show direct flights on the calendar view
I can't find anything to book. You have a lot of other people here who pay for expensive ticketing services just because Alaska's IT is so completely inept.
Is there any plan to fix this?
You have to go all of the way through the booking process to get them. For instance, there are first class on Qantas flights listed in the fall and have been for months. How many hundreds of people have wasted their time trying to book this?
There's no way to filter out mixed flights from being show on the calendar view or day view
There's no way of filtering out different airlines on the calendar view
There's no way to filter to just show direct flights on the calendar view
I can't find anything to book. You have a lot of other people here who pay for expensive ticketing services just because Alaska's IT is so completely inept.
Is there any plan to fix this?
Mar 14, 2016, 1:00 pm
#347
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Washington state
Programs: AA LT Gold
Posts: 270
20 minute guarantee
How do you get the guarantee when there is no agent at baggage claim. Only person I saw at SEA was guy with scanner , scanning bags that were stillming off at 24 minutes? My first bag came at 20-1 and the second at 23+. I looked around for an agent but no one was visible. Flight was 876 from KOA landing at A13.
Mar 14, 2016, 1:13 pm
#348
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Northern Calif./Eastern Ida.
Programs: Amethyst Premier Plutonium Medallion
Posts: 20,700
Does AS have ANY plans to fix their website for booking rewards. The current system is absolutely USELESS. There are rewards that you find that aren't there.
I can't find anything to book. You have a lot of other people here who pay for expensive ticketing services just because Alaska's IT is so completely inept.
Is there any plan to fix this?
I can't find anything to book. You have a lot of other people here who pay for expensive ticketing services just because Alaska's IT is so completely inept.
Is there any plan to fix this?
for you. Probably no plans to fix it. Most of the OALs have many similar issues in booking awards as what you describe on AS. You don't have to pay for an "expensive ticketing service". For instance, if you want to book CX, then using the BA search engine is a fairly definitive path to identifying what awards would be available.It is clear you don't like AS much right now. Perhaps you should go try booking an AF award ticket on DL with a domestic connection to DL metal. Now that will be an unpleasant experience, trust me.
How do you get the guarantee when there is no agent at baggage claim. Only person I saw at SEA was guy with scanner , scanning bags that were stillming off at 24 minutes? My first bag came at 20-1 and the second at 23+. I looked around for an agent but no one was visible. Flight was 876 from KOA landing at A13.
You can get the award after the fact by tweeting AS, sending them an email, or calling customer service. IIRC you only have 24 hours to claim the award, so act quickly via one of those channels.
Mar 14, 2016, 3:58 pm
#349
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Seattle, WA
Programs: OZ Diamond, BA Silver, DL Gold
Posts: 26
Deleted.
Last edited by columnwest; Mar 15, 2016 at 11:20 pm Reason: Moved to separate thread.
Mar 15, 2016, 10:10 pm
#350
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: BOS/ORH
Programs: AS 75K
Posts: 18,325
You have been told probably close to a hundred times (no joke). Every time you complain about this same exact thing, it gets moved down the list. Why did you post in flame free? Its not going to stop me from flaming because you know better. The whole purpose of Fame free is to cut down on snark that may keep new members from asking questions. Your has been asked an answered a million times and you know better.
PS. I did just feed you so i'm part of the problem as well as a few others on here.
PS. I did just feed you so i'm part of the problem as well as a few others on here.
Mar 16, 2016, 1:12 am
#351
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: SEA
Programs: Hilton/Marriott Gold, Accor Silver
Posts: 2,036
You have been told probably close to a hundred times (no joke). Every time you complain about this same exact thing, it gets moved down the list. Why did you post in flame free? Its not going to stop me from flaming because you know better. The whole purpose of Fame free is to cut down on snark that may keep new members from asking questions. Your has been asked an answered a million times and you know better.
PS. I did just feed you so i'm part of the problem as well as a few others on here.
PS. I did just feed you so i'm part of the problem as well as a few others on here.
Mar 16, 2016, 1:57 am
#352
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend, Moderator, Information Desk, Ambassador, Alaska Airlines
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: FAI
Programs: AS MVP Gold100K, AS 1MM, Maika`i Card, AGR, HH Gold, Hertz PC, Marriott Titanium LTG, CO, 7H, BA, 8E
Posts: 42,977
Wirelessly posted (beckoa's BB: Mozilla/5.0 (BB10; Kbd) AppleWebKit/537.35+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/10.3.2.858 Mobile Safari/537.35+)
For KOA (and a couple others) I've sent AS an email.
For KOA (and a couple others) I've sent AS an email.
Mar 17, 2016, 1:31 pm
#353
Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 1,747
You have been told probably close to a hundred times (no joke). Every time you complain about this same exact thing, it gets moved down the list. Why did you post in flame free? Its not going to stop me from flaming because you know better. The whole purpose of Fame free is to cut down on snark that may keep new members from asking questions. Your has been asked an answered a million times and you know better.
PS. I did just feed you so i'm part of the problem as well as a few others on here.
PS. I did just feed you so i'm part of the problem as well as a few others on here.
It's pretty easy for the clueless IT department to build a filter to let you filter the award search to remove mixed searches. Those folks literally have told the customer service department that it's not technically possible. That's in one of the biggest tech cities on the planet. It's not possible to build HTML/JS such that it filters out mixed awards.
Brilliant.
Mar 18, 2016, 1:18 am
#354
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Original Poster
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: QLA
Programs: SBUX Gold
Posts: 14,507
How do you get the guarantee when there is no agent at baggage claim. Only person I saw at SEA was guy with scanner , scanning bags that were stillming off at 24 minutes? My first bag came at 20-1 and the second at 23+. I looked around for an agent but no one was visible. Flight was 876 from KOA landing at A13.
Mar 18, 2016, 9:07 am
#355
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: LFT
Programs: AA Plat, lots of AA, AS, DL, UA miles, former top level CO Elite (sigh...)
Posts: 10,804
We'll be flying into SAN from DFW on AA and then connecting to AS for a QX operated flight up to MRY. It appears we shall have to change terminals at SAN (from term #2 to term #1, I think).
So here's the question: will we have to re-clear security at SAN or is it possible to walk between the terminals on the airside?
So here's the question: will we have to re-clear security at SAN or is it possible to walk between the terminals on the airside?
Mar 18, 2016, 11:07 am
#356
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Sunny Seattle
Programs: AS MVPG 75K, HH Diamond
Posts: 539
The walk between the terminals landside is no problem; there's a terminal shuttle bus, but I've never used it. I'd expect it to be slower than walking.
Mar 18, 2016, 11:13 am
#357
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Northern Calif./Eastern Ida.
Programs: Amethyst Premier Plutonium Medallion
Posts: 20,700
Does the MRY flight leave from T1 or the commuter terminal? The walk from T2 to the commuter terminal would be quite long, and more transfer time than normal might be advised.
Mar 18, 2016, 11:27 am
#358
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: LFT
Programs: AA Plat, lots of AA, AS, DL, UA miles, former top level CO Elite (sigh...)
Posts: 10,804
Looks like T1. At least, last time we flew into SAN on the QX operated Q400 from STS we arrived at T1 at what was normally a jet gate (the jetway was not used for our arrival). Good news here is that we'll be in F on AA and will thus deplane first and then move smartly with regard to the connection.
Mar 18, 2016, 12:39 pm
#359
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Sunny Seattle
Programs: AS MVPG 75K, HH Diamond
Posts: 539
Mar 18, 2016, 12:59 pm
#360
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Northern Calif./Eastern Ida.
Programs: Amethyst Premier Plutonium Medallion
Posts: 20,700
