MikeShores

New MVP Gold 75K with status matched from AA. It has been a long time since I have flown AS (Decades in fact) and I've been captive to the AA program. That said, with PAE opening up and 4 trips to the SEA area (at least) coming up, I decided to do the status match and check AS out. I am somewhat confused about how booking works. When I search regularly, I see the Saver, Main and First prices. That makes sense, as it's similar to AA's Basic Econ, Main Cabin, and First. When I select the MVPG75K upgrade, however, I see Main, Premium Cabin Upgrade, First Class Upgrade, and First class.

As a MVPG75K, premium cabin is free at the time of booking, correct (isn't this MCE for AA)? If so, why does that show up as a separate upgrade option? When would I be able to select that seat? I assume the first class upgrade option would be the instant confirmation upgrade? In almost all situations, I see that as only about 20% off the price of full-fare F. If selecting the Premium Cabin upgrade choice, I would still be eligible for the complimentary upgrade at T-5 relative to space available, correct?

How does MVPG75K status compare to Plat Pro on American? Anyone have experience with that?

BTW, I am AUS based if that helps.

jinglish

The change fee waiver alone helps negate the MR outlay if you think you might have to change travel plans, especially now that the 60-day waiver is gone.You do have Premium access at booking; the way you're seeing things displayed is probably just an artifact of the fact that 75Ks get automatic F upgrades on certain higher economy fares, and MVPs and Golds get automatic PC upgrades on some of those fares too--and AS software engineering didn't feel like tweaking the UI more to not show 75Ks the Premium Upgrade column. And you'll still be eligible for an F upgrade if you're in PC.

VegasGambler

IMO the extra miles earned from MVPG are worth a lot more than the extra upgrade chances.

The waived SDCs are very nice for short (shuttle) trips because (1) the inconveniently-timed trips may be MUCH cheaper than the ones where you actually want to fly, and (2) if you care about upgrades on short flights you can SDC your way to an upgrade a lot of the time.

brosnan6

Is it normal to be unable to do OLCI on an international partner award ticket, even when all I'm trying to check in for is the connecting domestic AS leg? I'm doing SEA-LAX-DXB and when I first got the OLCI prompt it asked me for all my passport info, which I entered. However at that point the process errored out and now all I get is a message saying "Please check in at the airport. We need to verify your international documents before check-in. Please go to the airport and present your documents to an Alaska Airlines customer service agent to get your boarding pass." This message makes it seem like AS is trying to check me in for my EK flight too, which I didn't think they were able to do? Or am I overthinking this and this is all normal/expected behavior?

jinglish

This has always been the case for me, whether it's an AS-ticketed award or a partner-ticketed international itinerary with an AS flight as the first segment. They want to do an in-person passport check even though they're not issuing the subsequent boarding passes.

Finkface

I think something has changed recently as well. I travel a lot between Canada and the US and I have never had problems doing online check in. On my past three trips, though, I can OLCI for the Canada-US legs but cannot for the return portion US-Canada even though the first one or even two segments are all domestic within the US. I get the same error message as the OP, despite having passport and Nexus saved in my profile, entered at booking and entered again at OLCI. And this is on all AS metal itineraries.

I suspect it is the new normal. Any international flight or connection departing from the US even with a domestic segment first gets this error. I’d love to hear recent examples that prove this wrong, though. It has become a real pain to not be able to check in online as I often cut it pretty close getting to the airport (no bags, Nexus/Precheck, in F). It means I have to get to the airport an hour early just to check in and have to shlep down to AS counters, then backtrack to security. I used to either do the passport check at the gate of my first flight or, more often, at the gate before the actual flight to Canada. It is really annoying and it only started a few months ago. I have always been able to OLCI in the past with a doc check needed at some point. I am wondering what changed.

princesakura

Earning question:

I'm in the middle of flying some CX fares and want to credit them to AS. I think I'll make MVP or MVP Gold sometime this year even without counting the earning on CX metal. If I hold off on retroactively crediting the CX flights to AS until I have AS status later this year, will I get the elite bonus of the status on the date of retroactive application, or will I get the elite bonus of the status on the date of the flight?

twitch76

williwaw

Yes, two bookings. You can call and link them - which really only means that they can see you are together if there are cancellations or other issues. Note you will have access to MVP seating options, but she will not on the separate reservation. Same for bag or any other MVP benefits that apply to the party as a whole.

nikdro

Forgive me, I could not find the answer to this anywhere.

I recently realized I have some Alaska Miles set to expire soon, if I book an award flight and cancel within 24 hours, does that activity count towards extending expiration?

williwaw

Not sure about that strategy, but wanted to share my usual technique to keep points alive somewhere is to do one of the public opinion surveys that credits miles or shop through the MileagePlan portal and buy something small.

Alexsth2011

Right now I am MVP Gold. I should be GOLD 75k by the time we do this short flight up along west coast in late summer, which means DW will be given MVP. And there's our 6yo.
Do you have a good strategy in general to give ourselves best chance to get all three of us upgraded to PC or even to FC together? Or specifically SFO-SEA?
Or does X make complete sense here if we can choose seats at the time of booking directly with alaska?
Thanks in advance.

EmailKid

+1

Activity probably won't post, as miles are not credited until flight is flown, which would be never and account would remain untouched.

I did the portal thing with AA, and it worked like a charm (I got an inexpensive memory stick that I needed anyway ).

allset2travel

Couple of basic questions before I jump off to book a whole bunch of partners' flights.

Need help to understand how to read Partners earning chart, say take BA as example.
I see the chart has 4 columns: class of service; base miles earned; COS bonus; additional bonus

Which columns are for EQM, and which are for RDM?
Anything else should I be reading off the chart beside the above?

Thank you very much!

jinglish

RDMs will be base miles (for a given class of service) + COS bonus + additional bonus. EQMs will be only base miles + COS bonus.