sfozrhfco

The reality is, AS is a non entity in most of the world. DL/UA can open up seats as they actually fly around the world and have JV partners as well. AS flies nowhere in Asia so despite the bloggers and AS themselves pushing sales of miles with visions of cheap free flights all around the world, the reality is vastly different currently. AS has to pay the other airline cash if mileage space is not available and with international flights being cancelled on a daily basis, they would be bankrupt if they were shelling out full J/F fares to other airlines when a cancelation occurs on an award booking.

They are having trouble running their operation in SEA with a few inches of snow. I would not have any expectations of them going out of their way in helping with partner issues right now.

clarrkkent

Exactly. If I'm stranded in a foreign country because of a cancelled flight, you can bet I'm going to cough up the $443 (although it would have been closer to $275 during the buy miles promo that I believe was active when this thread was started) it takes to get me home and then worry about compensation(although, I believe none is due here). I'd even take the lower redemption of a Y award so I wouldn't be stranded as well if I couldn't afford the $275-$443. It's not ideal, but if you can't reach a Partner Desk agent that is willing or able to help, it sure beats the alternatives.

Sure, I can stand there and pontificate why I'm not being helped the way I think I should OR I can demand things go my way, but neither are likely to get me anywhere. If there's one thing I've learned in airline travel, it's that you should absolutely take control of the situation when you have the opportunity to do so.

AndyKehn

There's also seat on Y with JL that is cheaper and within your mileage budget. Why don't you book that? Or why don't you have buy 15k miles if you want to fly J? Sorry you're the one that fails here. Such abhorrent entitlement and the DIYKIA attitude.

Eastbay1K

Agree on the taking control. Agree on getting home and dealing with the aftermath later.

Bigger picture is that AS now is a OW member and wants to play with the big boys. While the OP was given the opportunity to spend just another 15k miles to get home, i expect that frequently would not be the case. Also, AS's legal obligations with a ticket are different than blowing a lifetime of passenger goodwill.

All that said, I am on my second trip this year in which I have purchased travel insurance. I have never independently purchased travel insurance until 2021. I expect that it will become a not infrequent part of my travel purchases for upcoming international travel.

While most of us here are familiar with earning and spending buckets of miles and points, much of the traveling public is not, even many business FFers. Burn these high spenders more than once and those AS poached from other programs aren't even going to warn AS not to let the door hit it in the ... as they slam it without looking back.

Calculon

When OW awards become available, I suspect more options for re-accommodation will be a part of them. I also expect a OW award to cost a fair bit more than the partner-specific awards that exist right now.

dayone

Whatever a oneworld award will be, I suspect that it is at least a year away.

Repooc17

In general, airlines cannot force partners to open award spaces even in case of IRROPS. You might think it'd be easy for AS to ask CX or JL to re-accommodate you. In reality, those airlines have no obligations to do so.

Without knowing the full extent of your UA experience, keep in mind UA has a much larger international (and domestic) operations than AS, so UA can open up spaces on its own metal; while this is no go on AS, especially for Asia routings.

Calculon

I haven’t heard an update on the expected time for them, but given the overall labor shortage, it’s hard to expect they’ll be ready soon. Nearly all of my current, and several past clients have been asking for more time on projects, or to help them find more developers.

22calbr

If the airlines policy doesn't specifically accommodate OP's scenario, you're basically asking for goodwill and hoping your status matters. It's pretty clear from OP's resolution that it doesn't. Chalk this up as another YMMV.

eponymous_coward

The problem is that CX has spent the pandemic being an operational trash fire in terms of schedule reliability. It’s a bit different from day of flight IROPS to have a bunch of FTers think they’re working the system and getting a steal by only spending 50k AS miles for J… which turns out to be a complete false economy when CX yanks the schedule the way Lucy yanks the football from Charlie Brown, at which point AS and CX can point fingers at each other.

(Frankly I think SQ did the right thing by yanking partner awards early on in the pandemic, and they’re orders of magnitude better right now at actually flying their schedule.)

QT31415

We've had the same thing happen to us when travelling internationally with BA on AS miles. The last time, the cancelled flight home happened within 24 hours of travel. AS will call and ask BA to play nicely, but in the end, it is the partner airline who decides whether to open seats on an alternate route. With CX, we've had similar experiences in nonpandemic times, so I assume its a paucity of available seats/flights that have lead to your current issue. As a frequent flyer, I'd have to be quite a gambler to book a reward ticket to Asia these days.

thaitraveller

Saw this in an article recently and thought appropriate here:
We talk a lot at TPG about “service recovery.” Things will always go wrong in travel; it’s how brands react to those mistakes that really matter.

Here, something went wrong. What was the reaction of Alaska? Did it react like a major airline brand would? Especially towards a customer with status? I think not.
There were lots of things Alaska could have done to react, but it did nothing.
It does not matter whether the flight was a deal or not a deal; whether the customer should have known or not, or whether it was all predictable.
Alaska had it in their power to help to 'make things right' even if partially - and they did nothing at all. There was no Service Recovery here at all. Quite the opposite - there was Service Indifference.
Even worse, Alaska actually did harm. My return ticket had segments on both a Partner and on Alaska. When the partner cancelled the international flight to the gateway, Alaska could have protected my domestic ALASKA connection. Alaska did not. Further, Alaska would not even restore what I had booked months before (and which was now not available). No one at Alaska has the power to enact "Service Recovery".
And, I believe, that for an airline that needs to build its brand assuring business travelers that it offers the same quality and reliability as a major airline - that failure is a major problem.
When Alaska had dropped its cross country schedule to less than once a day, I had already had to shift back to UAL. I got 2nd tier status in only 4 months of flying (the natural way).
I lamented the decision - I loved Alaska and would have liked to have stayed.
But this reinforced regrettably that in these uncertain times, where things will definitely go wrong, how a brand reacts to that really matter. And there are options out there that will focus on Service Recovery.

olouie

I feel your pain. AS is really still a regional airline in many respects and while their agents are nice corporate policy is very lacking. They do stuff like no notice devaluations, schedule changes without notice, etc that are pretty terrible. I fault AA and UA for a lot of things but they have never left me stranded if I book a RT award flight and things change even on partner awards. When AS partners change or cancel award tickets I’ve been left to just figure it out myself - agents are still nice but just don’t really know how to help. Unfortunately AS is playing catch up here and is in no hurry to improve.