Tag Archives for Alaska Airlines.
Alaska Airlines awards lifetime MVP Gold at 1 million miles, and lifetime MVP Gold 75K at 2 million miles. These members will receive additional benefits.
One passenger reports that a flight attendant on board Alaska Airlines flight 636 from Seattle to Las Vegas may have had their own video camera on Saturday evening.
A passenger was kicked off of an Alaska Airlines Portland – Las Vegas flight after spending 10 minutes in the lavatory before departure. The woman was killing time on her phone, admitted not understanding how the bathroom worked, and said she’d had ‘one and a half mimosas’ at the airport but doesn’t appear to have been intoxicated.
Usually when passengers go into the lav with their phone it’s to watch you-know-what. This woman was apparently having a conference call?
Airline check-in kiosks were supposed to be a money-saving investment – a classic example of automation replacing workers. But Alaska is moving to the next stage of evolution in cost-savings in the Portland airport where they’re now eliminating even kiosk jobs.
After a debacle years ago increasing award pricing without notice for travel on Emirates, Alaska Airlines made an express commitment to notify members in advance when making changes to the program.
Sadly they did not do that this week, as Monday they increased the price of award travel on their oneworld partner Japan Airlines, and they did this without any advance notice. So members who were saving their miles for a specific trip had the rug pulled out from under them.
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s legal chances are dwindling as he faces charges over billions of dollars in fraud. He’s no longer flying private. He’s no longer even flying lie flat business class from San Francisco back to court hearings in New York. He doesn’t even get to fly into JFK airport.
SBF’s travel has taken a huge hit as the case continues.
Richard Branson pledged he would do launch a new Virgin airline in the U.S. if Alaska Airlines dropped the name, which suggests Branson certainly thought use of the trademark reverted to Virgin. He repeated the claim multiple times.
Virgin’s position at the Commercial Court of the High Court of Justice of England and Wales is that Branson was effectively lying – that Virgin had no right to use the trademark for an airline in the U.S. anymore – and that Alaska Airlines had purchased the exclusive right through 2039 whether they used it or not.
When Alaska Airlines introduced its new, unified award chart that replaced the separate charts for each airline partner on its website a month ago, it was a loss for transparency.
By sharing less information about award prices, they can increase those prices without telling consumers. They had previously committed to share changes with members in advance. But as long as the ‘starting from’ price doesn’t change, they can increase most award rates at will.
Elite frequent flyers in each airline’s program have benefits like extra legroom seats, not just the usual priority check-in, baggage and boarding benefits. And for nearly two years upper tier elites have been able to upgrade when traveling on the other airline.
Now, quietly – neither airline has sent out an announcement – the upgrade benefit has been extended to more frequent flyers.
Back in the early fall Alaska Airlines committed to introducing a new, simplified award chart by the end of the year. They’ve done that and it’s… not helpful. Alaska gives us less information, not more, and hides some devaluations in the mix.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
