We have a small dog that we bring fairly regularly with us and over the years the process on Alaska has ebbed and flowed but never been as quick and smooth as other airlines. Lately we have been flying between LAX and our place in Oregon a lot and have had several times where we added the pet in advance and the desks in Portland, LAX or Seattle struggled to take payment and/or get the system to reflect we could bring the pet on. So a couple of times we got stopped boarding and told we hadn't paid (we had), another time the agent up front at check in gave up and told us to just take the pet on but to date we hadn't had a situation where we very nearly missed boarding our flight. But in particular we were finding that on connecting we have to go through a whole additional round of processing the pet in cabin and even show the credit card charge on our phone.

For Thanksgiving week we flew LAX-SEA-BZN and return. On the outbound, the check in agent in LAX couldn't get the payment to process and finally just told us to board and tell the gate agents to call him if there was a problem. For the return, the check in team in BZN had no idea what they were doing and kept saying they had to call Seattle for instructions only to say then they couldn't seem to fix the problem. At one point I asked the agent to please check all our bags in and send them on the belt for loading and I would go with my three kids to the gate and my wife would try to settle the issue (the dog was on my wife's separate PNR). At that point things got a bit contentious and the agent went from friendly to "dont tell us how to do our jobs." So i went to the gate and immediately approached the two agents there and explained what was going on. They rolled their eyes, not at me but at their colleague up front and one of the guys immediately ran back and pulled my wife through the security line to try to fix things (we ultimately were the last to board). One bag did not make it and it was really only through some herculean efforts that my wife was allowed to board. The agent up front had unchecked her and so her seat from Bozeman to Seattle and onto LAX was cancelled and they had to do some gymnastics at the gate as they were about to close the door to get her flights reinstated. In the end, the agent up front refused to send my wife's bag out to have it gate checked (they can actually do this, the gate agents told us) and so we had a bit of unprofessional behavior toward us but among colleagues as well. In the end I found out what happened and why the check in agent had so many challenges (user error and need for more training that caused the spiral out of control, but also something the LA check in agent did that caused the problem initially), but the process is not working smoothly for us at most of the west coast airports we use.

I'm planning to send a note to the executive offices about the issues, we fly enough that we're 5 MVP Golds and we could fly Delta or American on these routes when we bring a pet. I happen to like the AS experience and at T6 LAX it is a dream to fly them if you have Clear.

My question here is whether other people who fly routinely with a pet in cabin are finding the process at the airport is jumbled like we are? They really should invest in something akin to a FF# for pets that would allow the pet in cabin to be booked (and paid) in advance but at least they need to streamline the online process the agents are using.

Not a frequent flier with my dog, but haven't had an issue flying Alaska SFO to Vegas in the past or SFO TO HNL a few months ago. Now the process for bringing a pet to Hawaii is a whole nother' story.

I haven�t had an issue. Do you contact AS reservations in advance consistently to tell them you�re bringing a pet in cabin? I�ve learned that is (uniquely) important on AS, as airport agents can�t add a pet to a reservation and have to call reservations themselves if not done.

Im not sure why it�s so much trouble for you as it�s rather seamless for me once I learned to add it in advance

We haven't had similar issues travelling with a small dog in cabin. I always call reservations once the flight is booked and have them add and confirm the pet on there. Then, I always pay for the pet via online check-in without issue. It still requires us to go to the counter to get a boarding pass, though. The only thing I find annoying is that having a pet seems to interfere with the upgrade list/process -- despite the reservation being shown as waitlisted I don't think one actually is on the list.

Sorry to hear you're having such a hard go of it.

https://www.alaskaair.com/content/mi...s/faq-upgrades :

And it should be inhibited, given that there's a capacity of three (3) pet carriers in F. If you're on the list and there are already 3 F pax with carriers, or there are multiple carrier pax on the UG list, etc. - it could result in an IT nightmare, legitimately so (unlike the normal UG processor petulance)!

We do nearly always add the pet in advance and then figure if we have to go to the counter for BPs then we'll just pay the fee there. As others seem to note, the payment process doesn't always go.smoothly at the front counter. So maybe we should do the payment in advance and see if that helps.

The last post about upgrades, that is what happened in BZN. Agent could not get things to work so unchecked in my wife, removed the pet and tried to re-add the pet and check her in again. In the 5 minutes she was trying to do that, my wife was upgraded to F for SEA-LAX and our guess is there were already the max number of pets in F and it would not let them add the pet back. My head was about to explode because I kept saying just move her back to Premium before her seat is gone. It was and so she got put in a middle Premium seat further back.

You sound unpleasant to deal with. Making a lot of assumptions like assuming there already too many pets in F. I have a feeling that had the �just moved her back to premium� your head would�ve �been about to explode� anyway�..also curious why you didn�t volunteer to be moved to premium but I digress. Hope this works out for you as it normally does with everyone who�s replied to this thread and the scores of people traveling with pets daily.

you make a lot of assumptions about me, including that I was even on the same flight as her and could�ve volunteered to move to premium., as I noted when I got out to the gate the gate agents confirmed with me that the people upfront were clueless. And actually,, people aren�t saying that it always works flawlessly,

One might hope that the upgrade processor could actually check this pre-condition before upgrading someone. But I expect it's low on the priority list of things to fix in IT Probably right along with the bug that itineraries with pets still show "Waitlisted for First Class" when in fact they aren't...

Interesting. I flew ANC-LAX and there was a BF upg next to me... and they had a dog in the carrier. It was quiet for the flight at least.

What do you think would happen if a 100K is lucky enough to to be upgraded to First at T120, or even later and arrives at the counter to add a pet? Would AS boot you to the back of the bus for trying to beat the system? No soup for you?