I've been called before (pre-x class)

Last week I was given a friendly warning by a phone agent that they will be cracking down more severely on FFs with conflicting reservations. When I called about a separate issue, she noticed I had overlapping reservations in two weeks. She said call center agents received a heads up that starting 3/1 any tickets that conflicted would BOTH be automatically canceled 48 hours out from the first departure. Personally, I resolve any conflicting reservations before 48 hours out, so I'm not worried, but I could see this being a problem for some people.

If there is really no way to preemptively cancel an X fare ticket, I could see this being a problem.

Good to know - like you I usually have it resolved well before that window. Its usually that I want to book the new itinerary before cancelling the original one just in case something happens on the fare for the second ticket. I usually only have a conflict in play for a day or two at most and month or so out from travel. But I could see why they'd want to crack down once you are closer to the departure.

Interesting challenge for the X fares then.

Really?

I tried this once and it would not ticket. I called and the agent didn't know what was wrong. I asked if it was because of the conflicting reservation and he said no. He also said that they had a bot that did occasional sweeps or something but he said that it shouldn't prevent it from ticketing (I was a bit confused about that point)

However, I canceled the conflicting reservation and the other one immediately, automatically ticketed, with no manual intervention.

This was on a partner award so I'm not sure if that makes a difference. It is all AS ticket stock though.

In any case, the CoC specifically calls this out as a "prohibited practice" and says that they can cancel overlapping reservations at any time -- I'm not sure if I'd want to risk it?

Duplicate, impossible/illogical, fraudulent, fictitious or abusive bookings and/or reservations, or bookings and/or reservations made by Passengers with no intention of being used, are prohibited and may be subject to cancellation. A duplicate or impossible/illogical booking includes, but is not limited to, bookings for the same Passenger on flights traveling on or about the same date between one or more of the same or nearby origin and/or destination (such as SEALAX and SEAONT or SNASEA and ONTSEA), or bookings with Connections that depart before the arrival of the inbound flight. Fraudulent, fictitious or abusive bookings are defined as any bookings made without having been requested by or on behalf of the named Passenger. Additionally, creating bookings to hold or block seats for the purpose of obtaining lower fares, Mileage Plan award inventory, or upgrades that may not otherwise be available, or to gain access to airport facilities, or to circumvent any of Alaska's fare rules or policies, is prohibited without prior authorization from Alaska.

I think there are some fine points on there I could kindly argue in my favor. For me its always a revenue ticket on AS metal and usually because the client can't decide on the when and where, so I book options and cancel as needed. It seems a more legitimate use since I am just trying to get work done, and fare cost is not the issue (we'd probably eat the second fare if needed, being where the client wants is more important.)

I'm not suggesting that you are doing anything wrong.

But if they just automatically cancel the tickets it might not matter if you are right or not

The last time I had overlapping reservations, i had notice within less than 24 hours that one was going to be cancelled.

I'm seeing that Main fares are now the lowest fares in some markets that formerly had Saver. The pattern seems to be some markets where WN is the only nonstop competition.

Examples: OAK-SEA, SJC-PDX, SMF-PDX, SJC-BUR, SMF-SAN, SJC-AUS, SJC-SNA, etc.

Nearby markets that have competition on legacy carriers seem to be continuing to offer Saver (e.g., SFO-SEA, SJC-SEA, SFO-PDX, SFO-BUR, SFO-AUS, SFO-SNA).

I'm wondering if this is them conceding that the Saver restrictions drove a bit too much business to Southwest.

$69 Main fare, same as Southwest. This is excellent news for customers and sensible for Alaska.

Now it's time to realize that SFO-SoCal and SJC-SoCal compete with OAK-SoCal, which Southwest owns.

Also, what about OAK-OGG and OAK-HNL?

I've seen routes where the saver fare with R as an underlying fare code was the same as (or more expensive than) the R fare. But the saver fare with T as an underlying code was cheaper than T. So it will look like there is no saver available when there is R space (the website will not show saver unless it's actually cheaper than main). But then when the R inventory sells out, and the cheapest available is T, suddenly saver will show up on the website.

However, at least for some (if not all) of the routes that you mentioned (I checked OAK-SEA and SJC-PDX), every fare that books into X has the same price and the same advance purchase restrictions as the main fare with the same underlying booking code, so, they did, indeed, seem to "turn off" saver for those route. The fact that Southwest has very good service from OAK and SJC, and is very limited from SFO, makes me think that your reasoning is correct.

And, all this time, I thought that Southwest was just driving the race to the bottom. I still wouldn't fly them, but it's nice to see them doing something useful.

Middle exit row seats available for saver fares T-24
 

I went online to check available seating for a flight tomorrow, noticed something very interesting: available middle exit row seats are marked saver fare (!?!).

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...2d38520700.png

That's especially obnoxious for us FFs. I often move to a row with an open middle seat. If savers can now take a middle exit row, that just further devalues elite seat selection.

Man these fares are okay if you can get a seat at booking but if not, it auto-assigns you usually to a middle and you cannot ever change it. I'm literally at the gate 15 minutes before boarding with an auto-assigned middle and asked if I could swap, GA told me the window seat right next to me is open but I can't move to it; she told me to cross my fingers that no one gets assigned to it. I feel like at some point it stops being beneficial to hold non-middles....

Just pay the extra $30. Don't buy a cheap no frills seat then complain when you get assigned a cheap no frills seat.