professortim

What is going on? I have been looking for flights in October, December, and March. There is not a single gold or gold guest upgrade available on any dates on any flights. Looking for SEA-BOS or SEA-any New York airport. Included via all the California airports. Absolutely nothing.

PDXPremier

This discussion has been happening on the GGU thread so you may want to read some of those posts. I can give you the Reader's Digest version: For some reason, perhaps due to limited F cabin capacity, there is ZERO U space currently being released with the exception of flights within 24 hours which would of course be of limited value to elites. For the time being, GGUs are really only useful if you want to upgrade a non-elite friend or family member within 24 hours of departure (assuming U space is available).

professortim

Wow! What a way to get people to come back, take away one of the few benefits they can really use.

PDXPremier

Yup...very true.

NoLaGent

Heh. Whereas in the other thread, the majority say they're worthless and can't be used. Truly a YMMV.

professortim

I make several trans-cons and used them all the time. Sometimes I had to go SEA-SAN-EWR or BOS but could always make something work. I’m at the point in my life that I don’t travel coach and relied on these. I also book 11 months in advance to ensure I could get them.

PDXPremier

If GGUs stick around I suspect that U space will return after the pandemic...it just may be awhile.

eponymous_coward

Right now, nobody knows if AS is flying specific routes and timings 11 months in advance. Or really even a couple months in advance. You're asking for metaphysical certitude in an extremely challenging environment for airline operations- for instance your SEA-NYC route would imply 14 day quarantine on arrival at JFK/EWR. How many people will be traveling when they don't even know if they'll be in quarantine when they get to their destination or not?

Exactly. Kind of hard to blame an airline that is operating F cabins at half or so capacity and is losing a seven digit amount of money a day doing so that they're not handing out enough freebies.

anteater

The amount of money the company is losing is completely irrelevant to their lack of communication regarding their actions which affect their customers. They have made decisions to survive financially, specifically with U space and upgrades and should communicate it rather than leave customers in the dark.

Otherwise, they are no better than United in my book.

anteater

That they are reducing the ability to redeem GGU certs.

I understand you don’t expect much communication from AS, but I find it fascinating that you don’t understand other people may want to know when AS is changing benefits, even temporarily.

AS even has a COVID19 page where they could post a short statement about it.. “due to C19 we want to ensure maximum travel flexibility for our guests and will be reducing the ability to redeem GGU certs.”

I didn’t say I would be taking my business to United. I made a comparison to United.

Your responses seem inappropriate and hostile.

eponymous_coward

It's not even a case of "maximum travel flexibility for our guests", it's that the schedule is unusually subject to change, even close in. They literally don't know how much F capacity they're going to have on a route in a month.

It's not the first time U has been in fairly short supply (it happened a fair amount when the VX->AS merger was in process) and businesses don't tend to tell everyone about the stinking fish they're selling as marketing. It isn't exactly AS's fault that COVID-19 is making a hash of their ability to project revenue, seats in a market, etc. I don't find what you propose to be a very reasonable expectation.

Alert the moderators, I guess? I actually don't know you enough to want to be hostile. I'm quite sincere in thinking people should just go "goodbye cruel airline" when the business they're patronizing no longer works for them. The only way to make them learn is through the pocketbook.

anteater

AS tends to have better than average customer service than other airlines, so expecting them to communicate changes or potential changes to benefits or their availability isn’t unreasonable.

Or, alternatively contact Alaska Listens / Customer Care.

eponymous_coward

Sure.