MDtR-Chicago

For whatever it's worth, as a PM AS MVP Gold, with a lot of California travel, I'm finding it nearly impossible to stay loyal on a practical basis, in the sense that there are no flights on the routes I need!

When I became elite 3 or 4 years ago, it was easy. I would take AS for PNW travel and take Delta or American for anything else.

Then we lost Delta but American was still good enough.

And then Alaska started cutting its own and VX's non-stop routes from SFO.

This year alone, I've needed to fly to DEN, MSP, and OMA - routes either AS or VX used to fly from SFO - plus anytime I need to get to smaller cities in the Northeast it involves driving from New York or Boston. And there is still no service to PHX.

In particular, it shocks me that there's no service to DEN or PHX out of SFO! These are popular destinations for west coast business travelers!

I don't think I can even hit renewal of my status if I try because the flights don't exist. I'm left with trying to route thru SEA or LAX for connections that don't even have published fares, then driving from New York City or Boston for anything in the Northeast.

Any single one of those issues would be workable but not all of them together. As much as I dislike United and especially the loyalty program there's really no other viable option at this point.

bobbysfca

I couldn't disagree more. JFK Airtrain is really easy to use, and the walk from the train to T7 gates is really short. It's one of the easiest airports I know of for PT.

tusphotog

But but but! We get SFO-PHX for a whole six weeks this year.

bbison

Admittedly, I've only landed at T7 off SJC-JFK and SFO-JFK, but it seemed like a dump. What parts are nice? AA T8 is pretty great.

Flying for Fun

Flew it twice. Return to PHX had 7 empty F seats. Convenient for sure.

James

flymonthly

I agree that the JFK Airtrain is easy and walk to T7 gates is pretty short. It's getting TO the Airtrain that I was complaining about, especially when traffic (car & subway) is crowded/slow.

gaobest

PV_Premier

DL operates to most places in the northeast that UA does, via either DTW or ATL. I would rather connect in either of those airports than EWR or ORD, but YMMV. From SFO to DEN/PHX, you'd have to connect in Salt Lake, pretty good connecting airport and often the connections are efficient -- 35-45 minutes...but sure not the convenience of the nonstops that UAL offers. As a 50,000 mile flyer on either UA or DL you will not be seeing that many upgrades anyways.

I have moved a fair bit of my regional AS flying to WN, and so far it's working OK. Different experience, but not bad different. I have put my AMEX airline reimbursement on WN and just buy EBCI via the reimbursement when I want or need it.

This year I will only have flown AS to YKM (where they have no competition) and to OGG, where they have the only nonstop from my home airport...and even then, one way was booked with BA miles.

MDtR-Chicago

I've been considering DL, as well. I was DL Gold for years and liked it quite a bit. My company has a preference for UA but it's not insurmountable. The big difference in my mind is that I've had much, much easier UA redemptions lately, so whatever little RDM I'll earn would be worth more with UA.

angelamartinusa

The above mentioned answers give enough reasons for us to travel with Alaska.

It’s competitive, rewarding and flies to more destinations than many other airlines.

Seat 2A

No airline's perfect and Alaska does have its share of shortcomings. It's been my experience however (1.6 million miles flown on Alaska, 3.8 million on all the others) that Alaska offers a more consistently good overall service and - as a top level elite flyer - I can't imagine being treated any better by a U.S. airline; be it mileage earned, upgrades or even basic recognition. I remember when I was 1K on United - no comparison. 75K on Alaska is far superior. Additionally, I've heard the continuing parade of horror stories from DL and AA elites. Those airlines have simply become so large that I don't believe the quality of service I've come to expect from Alaska is possible aboard AA/DL with the consistency that I experience on Alaska.

That said, I totally commiserate with those for whom Alaska's route system or frequency of flights don't work or no longer work. I can't imagine Alaska would just cavalierly drop routes like SFO to DEN or PHX unless factors such as competition or even availability of aircraft made Alaska's continued presence in those markets untenable. For my part, I'm at a loss as to why Alaska doesn't bring back nonstop flights between Denver and PDX - a longtime Alaska/Horizon hub with great opportunities for online connections around the Pacific Northwest.

Kurt

Yes, the loss of DEN-SFO really bothers me as a Denver-based AS flyer.

eponymous_coward

I suspect AS can make DAL work the same way they make BUR/OAK work, an alternate in a large metro area that has access to AS's hubs and focus cities, in an airport dominated by WN, but that's just it.

VX was just weird in their choices; they dumped money into LGA/DCA slots, which might have made sense if they were going for a new midcon focus city, but they tied them up with an airport that had a hard cap on expansion (DAL), plus they wasted time and money on DAL-AUS/LAS, which just wasn't going to work going head-on against the WN beast.

I wouldn't be shocked if SFO/LAX-DFW happened at some point; you could sell SFO/LAX-DFW-XXX AA codeshares.

Business travelers are going to be using UA or WN on those routes if they are SFO/DEN based given that UA has hubs in both cities and WN has good intra-CA + a DEN hub. If they are PHX-based traveling a lot to SFO and California, it's AA or WN, same story.

UA has something like 13x SFO-DEN. WN and F9 serve it pretty well too. It's not by any stretch of the imagination an underserved market.

honmani2

While no airline is perfect, I'm satisfied with Alaska. And this is coming from someone who flew over 3MM with United.

WebTraveler

Everyone and their brother has asked this. And yet we get nowhere.