3 ms·
I'm guessing you have status with them? Almost every airline is great once you have status. Personally, I hate Alaska. I fly ~2/month & avoid Alaska if I can
by wdr1 9y ago
I'm guessing you have status with them? Almost every airline is great once you have status.
Personally, I hate Alaska. I fly ~2/month & avoid Alaska if I can. My wife's family is from Seattle, so sadly, they're unavoidable around the holidays.
Some grievances:
* Ridiculous fees. Before we were married my wife booked two flights for after we were married. She changed her name & realized that would cause a problem with those tickets. Southwest made the name change without a fuss. Alaska charged us $100.
When we protested & explained she had gotten married, the agent responded: "Every airline does this." "We just did it with Southwest & they didn't charge anything." "We don't consider Southwest competition."
* Alaska’s 20 Minute Bag Guarantee felt like a sham. It's no longer running (I believe), but multiple times my bags took over 30 minutes. Each time it took nearly an hour to get someone to give a voucher. And the vouchers are very limited.
* They charge for simple modifications to tickets.
* They charge for bags.
* Consistent long lines at LAX & SEA.
* Older planes. Both coach & first are C+ compared to other airlines.
* In-flight personal aren't as bad as United, but they're certainly not nice. Southwest & Virgin set the bar here & Alaska is far from it.
- rando444 9y agoYou say "simple modifications to tickets", but give no examples. Are you just repeating your earlier accusation of charging for name changes? At any rate, you just spoke to to someone who didn't know the company policies well enough, Alaska doesn't charge for name changes due to marriage. It's actually the only exception AFAIK. You have to present some paperwork as proof, but it can be done. You just happened to talk to someone who was not aware this exception existed. You could have asked to talk to someone else. Also, consistent long lines at LAX & SEA? Do you have any suggestion on how the airline has any control over how quickly they can check people in? Most airlines these days charge for bags, especially for domestic flights. I don't come to the US often, but in my limited experience I've had a better flight on Alaska than the majority of US based airline providers.
- Avery3R 9y agoFor what it's worth I flew with them two days ago and they were still announcing the 20 min bag guarantee. My bags didn't take long either
- ajmurmann 9y agoYeah most of their planes are disgusting and I can't stand their branding. It's such a shame that they acquired Virgin America. I loved that airline. I wish we lived in a world where that acquisition had been the other way around.
- 4ad 9y agoWhy are their planes "disgusting"? I fly a lot, both short haul and long haul, and I can't see any quality difference (is that what you mean?) between any planes from any carriers. They are all the same. Mind you, there are differences in seat pitch, lack of USB ports and so on, but I would not call any plane more disgusting than any other plane.
- ajmurmann 9y agoI primarily fly Alaska or Virgin America. Virgin planes are much newer, cleaner and ask around beautiful pieces of design. The Alaska planes are run down, less well kept and have a ugly design to begin with. Flying Virgin is like traveling inside a first generation iPod.