Have you sent in a message to AS about this yet?

I think a compromise I could live with is a change fee waiver extended to MVPG and G75K's. I can deal with some of the rest. Zero flexibility is unfortunate, especially as a 1MM'er and unlike AS.

Airlines are watching here, at least to some extent, so what I write is not secret.

They are testing the water. Basic economy vs. economy fare differential varies. Sometimes $20 each way, sometimes $30. Some airlines will let you pick seats from the last 4 rows then they will assign probably mostly middle seats after that.

Travelers will be asked to assess things like:
If I am elite, will I pay $20 more one way on a transcon than basic economy to get my pick of seats, which might include exit rows?
If I am not elite, will I pay $30 more one way than basic economy and get an average seat versus a rear middle?
Someday, it may be...will I pay $40 more one way than basic economy and not get any water, have to pay to use the lavatory, and are prohibited from standing up except to use the lav or deplane?

So on west coast flights that were $69 (SEA-SFO) its now $99, so a nice 30% fare increase. Not thrilled.

I think those are all fairly straightforward questions for a traveler to answer. The tricky part comes with the throwaway nature of Saver tickets.

If I am MVPG+, will I pay $30 more for the ability to change/cancel my ticket on the off chance that my plans change?
If I'm not MVPG+, will I pay $30 more for the opportunity to pay an additional $125 to change/cancel my ticket on the off chance that my plans change? How does $30 + $125 compare to the cost of the ticket itself? How likely is it that I'll need to change/cancel? How often will I buy up and not end up needing to cancel? How will that average out at the end of the year?

So many what-ifs that now need to be considered compared to what used to be a simple purchase. That's where WN does things so right. No what-ifs. Simple, straightforward, and no need to twist yourself into knots figuring out which avenue is the best option.

Seriously, with this basic economy disguised as a small poison for elite level travelers, this will definitely change the dynamic of future flying on Alaska Airlines.
Elites are now expected to pay additional $900+ ($30 X 30 transcon) to feel the current level of Alaska love (75K).
Who knows what the additional fees are going to be in 2020 and beyond.

For many, time has now come to decide your allegiance. To pay "up charge" and fly Alaska, or become free agent.

Jiburi

The increase is actually 43.5% (30÷69) ;)

James

It's sort of a variation on including an EQD based element in the program - instead of making you buy more expensive tickets to qualify, you have to buy more expensive tickets to get all the benefits after you qualify. And you still get more benefits than over at UA. If they don't go and add an EQD component like the US3, then it probably lets flyers off at less penalty than adding EQD would, and lets you qualify on cheap fares (it's still 500 mile minimum/segment, so throwaway saver fares on commuter flights can accumulate EQM relatively cheaply) and pick and choose whether you'd rather have the benefit or the $.

Sorry to re-post something I posted on a different thread, but I feel it's worth pointing out in here, too.

The period of a uniform $30 buy-up is definitely over, and it only lasted a few weeks. Here's an evening in March 2019: $30, $20, $10, or no Saver, depending on the flight. I don't know if these are being set based on other carriers' schedules, or if it happens automatically, based on available underlying fare class.https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...ee5bf0065b.png
For the curious, here are the costs to buy out of Saver:
$99: L (+ $30 or ~18%)
$211: H (so no Saver would be expected here, but + $0 or 0%)
$114: G (+ $20 or ~21%)
$124: K (+ $10 or ~9%)

I don't mean to be pollyannaish about this. I am deeply unhappy about these Saver fares. But claims that they're a 50% price hike are just not accurate.

Agreed. Seeing +$15 for the buy-up on SFO-LAX fares, which is more reasonable than $30. I'm still a bit miffed that they wouldn't scale it at least on the intra-CA flights on the initial roll out, but I guess it is better to start high and go down than do the reverse.
I would really love to see how the volume of bookings on short-haul flights have changed since the X rollout and for the BF/Cyber-Monday sale compared to last year for comparisons sake.

It was true. It's only within the last week that the buy-ups have been modified.

Last week there were, for example, SFO-LAX flights were saver was $49 and main was $79. Now they have come down to saver $49, main $64. That's still a 30% price hike

I even see an LAX-LAS flight that's $51 for saver and $81 for Main (59% -- AS 1490 on 1/25)

It took me only a couple of seconds to find this -- I just did a search on some random dates. I'm sure that if you take some times you can find more. I don't think that they are rare cases.

So, while it's not a 50% hike across the board, it is a very steep price hike, sometimes even exceeding 50%, particularly on short routes.

Yeah, in my mind, it's super unfortunate that the $30 buy-up period basically hosed the Black Friday sale this year. Maybe that was their intent?

There were definitely some tickets that I would have purchased for the $10 markup, but $30 was just too much. Southwest seems to be getting a fair chunk of my late-winter/early-spring travel in 2019, which totally bums me out.

Running a sale with the express purpose of having people not buy the things on sale? I think it's far more likely that they just started with $30 for all flights as a baseline and then realized how terrible of an idea that was after dismal Cyber Monday sales.

My thoughts exactly. I don't have the data to back me up, but I feel like the implementation could have been better developed than a flat rollout. Of course, I'm not revenue management and will never know the full extent of the story in fairness to AS. I hope that if that was the case, they take some lessons learned though.

Yes, also very much hoping that that's the case.

If I put on my tinfoil hat, "Running a sale with the express purpose of having people not buy the things [at the sale price]," does make a little bit more business sense.

But I like your conclusion better, so that's what I'm going to choose to believe. :D

I agree...I think the Cyber Monday sale, which use to be a pretty big deal, was largely ignored this year.

Might even be more than that if you factor Hawaii travel which is about the same distance as transcon for those of us on the west coast. Some of those are an additional $45 each way.

The primary reason I'm with Alaska is miles. Start tampering with those and I can live off my lifetime AA or UA status. I rarely make flight changes and if I can find a window seat I might be a likely candidate to at least give basic economy a try.

Tom in Nuremberg tonight

The vast majority of flyers doing 30 transcons a year are likely business flyers who aren't paying for their flights and don't really care what it costs. I suspect a big part of the reason Basic Economy fares have succeeded is that many corporate purchasing departments are now excluding them -- much to the delight of the airlines.

I just helped a family member and companion buy Saver Fares to Hawaii. The family member has the Alaska Visa and we used the companion ticket for a mostly free second ticket. With the Visa card, they each get a free bag. As non-elites with firm travel plans, the Saver Fare restrictions cost them almost nothing. Three rows of windows and aisles were available near the back. Main Fare seats were no better, merely closer to the front. Priority boarding isn't a big deal on a leisure flight, where overhead bins are less likely to be full.

I have Gold Guest upgrades which they can't use now, but there's no way even one of those, let alone two, will become available on Hawaii flights to non-elites once they are gone. I bought the tickets with my Chase Sapphire Reserve card in order to have Trip Cancellation and Trip Interruption protection.

Saver Fares are a large step down from Main for top elites, but only a small step down for non-elites.

How many corps buy tickets well in advance where the additional expense is that large? I doubt there is many. Our Concur includes alternatives like NK and WN, but they are not considered "Preferred" airlines and we don't have to book them. The flights ordered by non-stop and preferred airlines and the preferred are just the big three legacies which all have BE fares now (which are filtered out).

SJC-PDX: saver $76; Main $117. $41 buy-up.

I wonder what the max will be?

I saw $45 on one OAK-OGG flight.

I see it the other way around. :)

James

willing to bet these aren't X fares

clicking on WAS-SEA brings up travel dates of 2-9 Jan, and Saver isn't even offered (moreover, the lowest-priced flights on those dates come out to $448)
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...b4e18c6aec.jpg

incidentally, on 23 Jan the X-->Main buyup is only $10 (IAD-SEA and BWI-LAX-SEA)

Saver fares disappeared today from the OAK-OGG route I've been watching. At the top of the home page in yellow is the notice "Looks like we are experiencing a temporary technical issue. We are aware of the issue and are actively looking into it."

Edited to add: The fare listed on the date ribbon is the Saver fare, but the Saver column is absent from the fare matrix.

I wonder whether Alaska is tweaking its Saver pricing tactics on Hawaii routes.

dont even know why. booked 30k miles on AS on R class in Jan Feb...
flying almost every weekend...

originally only booked 3 trips (including MLK and President day long weekend) and another trip for personal reason.

expedia app 100 off means i booked 3 more round trip jfk sea for 156 usd in R class. oh well.

Quick question re: Saver fares
 

If we get one free checked bag with our Alaska Visa payment card, does that apply to Saver fares as well?

Yes....you can view the many posts on this topic.

i booked one way JFK SFO R class -- 10 USD over X class on Feb 16.

already have ovee 30k AS miles booked in R class.....

Interesting glitch, we allow you to select saver on impossible booking :D At least it errors out once adding to the cart

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...50a7a1b20e.jpg

Have been looking this week to see if Saver fares were only sold 3+ weeks out, but given we still see them for 1/8, it looks like they are at least sold within the 3-week window.

Doing a quick search on EF, I see X fares with a 3-day advance purchase requirement, but none without any requirement. (Which is not too say that there aren't any -- my search was not thorough)

How come sometimes they don't show up? Jan 14, SNA SJC (but days around it do)

For this specific example (SNA-SJC) there are 4 fares published which book into X. All have 21 day advance purchase requirements. Two have underlying fare class R, one is T, one is G.

However, the cheapest fare that books into X (underlying R) is the same price as the cheapest R fare that books into R. The AS website seems to not show saver fares when the cheapest saver fare is the same price or more than the cheapest main fare.

On the other hand, the cheapest T fare which books into X is $15 cheaper than the cheapest T fare which books into T. So once the R space is gone, the main fare will jump to the cheapest T price, and saver will show as available (as long as it's at least 21 days before the flight), with a $15 buy up.

The first flight of that day is R1 so it might happen soon (all are X7, which really means >= 7)