Back in September Alaska Airlines acknowledged that they had stopped allowing customers to confirm upgrades in advance. They still listed mileage upgrades as an award, and still gave out confirmed upgrade certificates (MVP Gold Guest Upgrades). However the space needed to use these wasn’t being made available.
At the time Alaska Airlines was blocking half the first class cabin for social distancing and had fewer seats to sell. They didn’t want to take away inventory that could be sold at a time they (and the rest of the industry) are desperate for revenue.
Alaska is no longer blocking seats in first class, or in regular coach. They’ve continued to limit ticket sales in ‘premium’ coach. And they’ve taken baby steps at re-opening first class confirmable upgrade (“U” bucket) inventory. The airline confirms to me,
- They began reopening U inventory in mid-December for travel through mid-2021
- In January they opened up availability similar to pre-pandemic levels for travel within 30 days
- Alaska is “now in the process of continuing to open U space for travel dates farther out.”
Basically you can confirm upgrades now within a month of travel at rates similar to pre-pandemic levels. There’s virtually no business travel and first class sales lag pre-pandemic levels. So there should be more upgrades available.
However it’s encouraging that they’re in the process of re-introducing confirmed upgrades further. Guest upgrade certificates and mileage upgrades are benefits that their frequent flyers earned. They’re going to need their best customers to drive recovery.
A brief digression on Alaska confirmed upgrades. The ‘U’ bucket was put into use in 2002 in order to capacity control first class upgrades. Before that confirmed upgrades were booked into revenue first class and cost 5000 miles one-way. If there was a first class seat for sale, you could have it for 5000 miles plus the cost of a lowest-fare coach ticket. Alaska had already started flights to the East Coast. It was truly one of the best values in the history of travel.
I actually was able to use my GGUs on a flight in late Jan. and another coming up next month. Just a data point that I am seeing “U” space even more than 30 days out, although nothing shows for flights for Apr/May.
The wife and I R Leaving Pittsburgh pa August 3 to Anchorage Alaska then leaving Anchorage Alaska on August 17 back to Pittsburgh flying Alaska airlines would like to know how many frequent flyer miles I have to have to fly round-trip first class my wife will be going There’s my buddy for $100 my question is how many F/F miles do I have to have to make this possible??
They have become a deeply disappointing airline IMO
Gary you did a hundred times better job communicating their lack of benefits for customers that earned them.They lost my business for life.Their communications poor over this past year
Confirmed upgrades useless
Over priced domestic awards on their own metal
Over priced revenue seats except in mots markets for coach or First class typically
and route cuts with mostly everything going through Seattle
No thanks I wish them luck. I’m out
And the company no longer cares except for some of their hard working front lines
We just had the worst Alaska Airlines experience yesterday. And it’s almost offensive that when you’re submitting questions to Alaska Airlines via Facebook messenger, it appears they have somebody answering you and placating you immediately without doing anything about your issues.
Alaska has taken a major step within the last 6 weeks to alienate its’ frequent flyers, eliminating the Fruit & Cheese platter. Not even MVP Gold 75k can preorder this for flights under 1,100 miles, knowing that this eliminates 90% of the West Coast (SAN-SEA is 1,050 miles). If you are confirmed in First more than 20 hours pre-flight you might be able to order it on flights above 670 miles, if it is not on a Horizon flight. They quietly eliminated this and only offer the unpalatable “protein platter” featuring the hard boiled egg entree or the chicken surprise sandwich in First and nothing in Coach, regardless of status. I wish they would serve their disgusting fare to the Board of Directors and then see if they continued serving it. This used to be an excellent airline but appears to be falling on hard times and eliminating any extra costs that would enhance the flying experience.