Alaska Airlines

Now why can't Seattle Alaska employees do the same? On July 23rd they were seriously lacking. I was told I had to move everything including my mom out of the way of the line because I had to print my own luggage tickets before I could check my luggage. Really? So I'm moving the wheelchair, walker, suitcase, and 2 carry on as well as my mom out of the way with no assistance. Then I get to the machine to print out bag tags and there is no category for a walker or a wheelchair. When asked no one can answer what I should do. I decide to choose the stroller category for both.

Once I get my mom, luggage, carry ons, wheelchair and walker back in line an employee finally recognizes that I am having issues moving everything through the line. She sends us to a newly opened assistant. I am then asked if we are taking the wheelchair to the gate. I reply yes and am then asked why I printed out three luggage tickets. I replied because I was told to. I am told that the wheelchair does not need a ticket because it will get a gate ticket. Well if you would not have made me print my own baggage tickets we would not have the problem of too many baggage tickets. Since they were able to eliminate a baggage ticket I realized they were probably just as capable to print the tickets out in the first place. They ask if my mom can walk to her seat and I reply no. All this information was included in my reservation by the way. They ask if I need an aisle seat repeatedly. I say I guess so if that is what someone who cannot walk to their seat needs.

Once they did transfer her to the aisle chair the guys did not know how to fasten her in and kept letting her elbows hit the seats. Please train your Seattle workers to have some kind of empathy for those that are disabled and for those traveling with the disabled. Once again thank you Detroit Alaska employees for a fantastic experience. Seattle employees need to train with the Detroit crew.

Cut to 6pm, when I am informed the 1030pm flight has been canceled and I am flying out the next day at 530pm. After getting on with reservations to change my flight out to 930am the following morning and maybe salvage some of my plans (I couldn't ultimately), I didn't receive a confirmation email about my itinerary. I called back a few hours later and requested it again. Still did not receive an email. Had to call a third time -- it's 1130pm by this point -- and demand an email to be sent while I sat on the phone. However, all that was sent was a receipt, but I was assured I was on the flight.

Cut to 8am Sunday, the following morning at SFO and I can't check in at a kiosk. After an hour of standing in line at the zoo in front of the Alaska Air check in stations, I get my boarding passes and am told to call Customer Care (closed till Monday) about being reimbursed for everything I spent while having to stay the extra night in San Francisco. This is important -- I asked REPEATEDLY how to deal with reimbursement. They told me just to call customer care with no instruction -- all operators, all people I talked to in Alaska air outfits at the airport.

So I call customer care. They honor the vouchers they suspiciously sent me earlier in the day on Saturday -- though the operator gets super defensive when I ask why the flight was canceled, she said crew issues, and I ask if they knew that was going to happen with the voucher email -- but demand ALL reimbursements have ITEMIZED receipts. NO ONE told me to do this -- I had receipts for everything but not all of them were itemized. Finally the operator admitted to me that Alaska had limited staff, tons of layoffs, tons of people retiring, etc and it becomes a domino effect down to the customers.

However, they still refused to reimburse for the full amount. Despite them canceling the flight. Despite giving zero instruction about how to properly get reimbursed. Despite wasting hours of my time just to get myself home. Maybe they don't send an email to every passenger whose flight they have canceled (something they can easily do) explaining how to get reimbursements per their company policies, because it's easier to make it difficult for people they have inconvenienced, for those people to make mistakes as they are scrambling to reschedule their travel plans, as they get frustrated from waiting on hold repeatedly with "customer care" to get all the money they spent back.

Don't fly with them until they get their house is in order (that will probably be a while). And if you do, there's a good chance your flight will be canceled -- I'd actually flown with them a month before and they did the same thing, only booked my family on a flight just a few hours later, so it was not a big deal. And if they do cancel your flight, itemize your receipts and stay in the most expensive hotel you can possibly find a room in.