Options for a cancelled BOGO
 

A short trip I had purchased for January 23 was cancelled by Alaska earlier this week. Purchased SEA-RDU-SEA and Alaska has apparently cut flights to/from RDU on Saturday's in January?(weird)

Wondering what my options are before calling - do I just lose the BOGO discount even though it was cancelled by Alaska?

The reservation says it must be changed by calling reservations, not available online.

Ha! I was on the same flight as well. I was given the choice of either flying on Friday or Sunday. Otherwise the only option was to cancel.

Small Airlines = less alternate flights, only recourse might be refund or alternate date. This is one of the thing I'd hope gaining Oneworld Alliance would change, providing AA flight options as part of alternate flights. I know when NW partnered with CO, cancelled flight often included partner flights as options. Alternate flights can be very expensive to an airline, but when both partners send their passenger to the other during flight irregularity, cumulatively it'll essentially be a push in a long run. I'd hope AS would enhance its partnership and have an agreement in place to its partners....

Jiburi

PS- Don't UA and DL routinely send passengers to AS (even without the partnership)?

If fixed on date, maybe a change of city pairs might be available too (if around the same distance) such as CHS (although CHS I'm sure has less frequency)

They wouldn't do that either. I asked. The rep was unusually strict on what could actually be done with my ticket. I was a little surprised.

One can always try HUCA... or leave the ticket "as is" and see what AS rebooks it to...

When CVG went away, I was able to have AS move us back to CMH- took lots of negotiation and escalation for it to be reticketed as I thought was fair.

I'm in a similar situation. My JFK-SFO-JFK on a Saturday in March, that I canceled with the 30% sale, was canceled -- the only nonstop in March is a weekday eastbound turn (the opposite of what I'm doing). There are a couple of alternatives, albeit with an unplanned overnight (not that I mind), or I could push it back to April or May. I noticed it a couple of days ago and just got an email about it a few minutes ago.

-J.

When a carrier changes the schedule rather than a one-off cancellation as in IRROPS, it typically has internal rebooking rules for agents.

A better approach would be to build an AA itinerary and call AS with the specific request for rebooking. Ultimately, AS has an obligation to refund under the DOT rule and its own COC and that's it.

I was given these same options when I called

They are being very un-Alaska-like when dealing with these BOGO fares. In my experience you have to fly the closest available date to your original flight--even if it is a random Tuesday months later (as happened to me when they cancelled service to Hawaii out of SAN for a time).

All this is true, and frustrating.

It's also important to remember that Alaska will refund 100% of your money in these situations, as Often1 pointed out.

Almost all of my bookings until April out of SFO have been impacted and so far the choices are pretty bad. Almost zero flexibility from AS even when they moved flights to require overnights in SEA. Sadly even my PDX flights have been impacted. 50% EDM bonus would have been nice but 18 hours to go from SFO to NYC just doesn’t work. Or 14 to get to Chicago.

This^ Pretty much every flight out of SFO on AS has been changed since October and through early March (so far) What was purchased as direct flights, are changed to connections routed through Seattle, LAX or SAN and short hauls/legs (SFO to...) all moved to SkyWest on little planes . Without exception, flights changed (both directions) from 2 to 13 hours each. Options are to accept these changes, take even worse routes/connections or cancel. What's most frustrating is that many of these flights are booked with their constantly advertised sales, then changed just after the sale is done. Canceling then rebooking later results in a non-sale fare change. So far this has happened on 6 flights in the last two months (Destinations: Maui, JFK, LAS and PHX)

It is frustrating, for sure, but AS doesn't have any control over jurisdictional implementation of COVID-19 measures. SFO is basically in lock-down and anybody coming in from outside SFO is required to quarentine for 10 days. If you fly into SFO and have an overnight layover you are exempt from quarentine if you stay at an airport hotel. SFO is a ghost town. There are not many inbound with the 10 quarentine requirement and not many leaving because they will be required to quarentine when they return.

I flew through SFO last week. My SFO-PHX flight was cancelled and replaced with SFO-PDX-PHX. The flight load on SFO-PDX on an E175 was 15 people, (19.74%) 8 in F, 7 in Main for a 12:10 pm departure.

In California, somebody contracts COVID-19 every six seconds.

James

Its more Alaska than covid causing this. United, Southwest, and American have not have the same massive impacts as AS from SFO lately. They changed schedules in 2020 but things have been better lately. The quarantine “requirement” is only for SF and Santa Clara counties and a recommendation elsewhere. Plus it’s not enforced at all. Not saying that one should travel but we need to be factual here.

What really shocks me is the lack of any flexibility from Alaska. When United and American are more flexible than Alaska and providing better customer service you know something is majorly wrong.