I was allowed to cancel my reservation for a refund on a flight that doesn't exist anymore. My issue with your logic (and although this was a good gesture by AS) is that another airline's acceptable option by the time AS cancels the route could cost more than the entire AS round trip did.

soon you wont be buying those ultra cheap AS tickets anymore though because they'll be basic economy ;) LOL

#changesyoulllike Smisek style

And your point is?

Basic Economy or not, a ticket purchase is bound by a contract of carriage. AS has an obligation to fulfill their end too. If they are not able to deliver you to your destination at the time and date specified as a result of a schedule change or route cancellation then they are required to "make right" and reaccommodate. No different than IRROPS. In the case of a route cancellation or a schedule change not suitable, a refund would be appropriate.

What fare class you purchased is irrelevant to the topic.

James

Totally screwed my family's Hawaii trip from Detroit over Christmas. SEA-HNL moved up by 2 hours, so misconnecting from DTW and how spending 23h in SEA for the first day of vacation. PDX-DTW is cancelled as well. Was going OGG-PDX-DTW, now leaving later and overnighting in Seattle. Losing a day of vacation and a night of sleep. Best offer from AS was a paid hotel voucher for the overnight in SEA. Said a manager would call me back. They have not in four days. Replacement tickets in same CoS are $10K more than we paid for five people so a refund is not super useful.

Your post point outs a big problem. Alaska is very weak on the east-west connections to Hawaii, Mexico, etc. So weak that they are not going to make any effort to allow for connections to the east, so for most of these, Alaska is relying on point to point only for these routes.

Brand recognition in places other then Pacific Northwest is weak, and combine that with the poor leadership from the Brad Tilden management team, and this is what we have.

I would ask for hotels in Seattle on both directions of your trip, since you claim you have a 23hr connection one way, and an overnight on the return.

I'd also look creatively at trying to hop through another city like PDX or one of the CA cities to make your itinerary a little more bearable.

Finally, I did a quick search for dates around Christmas, using 12/22-12/29 as an example. Apparently AS still codeshares with AA on ORD-DTW, allowing this itinerary to be ticketed on AS stock: https://goo.gl/flights/aJKR2

It gives you a normal day of travel outbound and a redeye OGG-SEA return connecting to SEA-DTW in the morning. You might check if it's offered on your dates and ask AS to put you on that instead. If you need to get to HNL instead of OGG on the outbound, the same idea should work with AA on DTW-ORD and AS onward, ticketed on AS stock using the codeshare.

I wouldn't rely on a manager to call you back, I'd call during normal business hours on the west coast, and ask that your situation be escalated to a supervisor, then be very direct about what you want.

Very odd timing for "fall" schedule changes, by the way, if they actually did happen earlier this week.

They usually only happen quarterly, and the last quarterly shift was Sunday, March 18 (I know, since I had a couple of June flights shift). Thankfully, no more changes for my flights through November.

I wonder if this batch of changes is tied to this week's integration of the Virgin America and Alaska Airlines systems. And if there will be another batch in June.

Thank you PV_Premier! A manager actually did call me back (actually they called me back a couple days back apparently, my voice mail ate it). We have 2 tickets on a companion fare (had my brother get the AS Visa to book this) and 3 tickets on miles (2 in F, 3 in Y). So, AS cannot put us on AA. However they have promised to look further into this and call me back again with options.

And... as of this (Sunday) morning, the fall schedule changes appeared on my fall flights. Apparently cascading through the system. My Palm Springs flight in November was among those changed.

Sundays have tended to be when AS flight schedule changes appeared.

So if you checked a couple of days ago and your flights hadn't changed, probably worth taking another look now.

Most carriers seem to update Saturday night.

AA and AS typically do. IME, UA and DL update Friday nights.

I agree, at least for AS, and it's why I usually check first thing Sunday mornings. That's why I was surprised when some others here noted they'd had schedule updates mid-week.

Had to circle back here. Finally talked to the right person to help us today. Alaska made this right -- better than right -- for our whole family. AMAZING service gesture!!! They helped my family because I am a Gold so it's good to know that loyalty is valued at AAG.