Alaska Airlines

At this point I had the worst feeling about the flight. We settled into the flight. My children were doing great and were behaving the best they had on any flight. My son's mask was a little loose. I had given him the 32 degree masks from Costco and they slip. The flight attendant reminded my son to pull up his mask, which he did. Not too long after the flight attendant Tyler came to me and told me he had reminded us a lot to put up our masks. My husband told him it had only been two times. Tyler began to argue with my husband. I told Tyler a firm thank you and he left.

At this point I didn't dare rest my eyes. I kept checking my children's masks. My oldest son's mask did slip down again but I would hurry and make sure he had it up. Not once did we ever refuse to wear our masks. Not once were we unruly or trying to be a problem on the flight. We were in the last row of the plane right next to the flight attendant cabin. We could hear them talking bad about the passengers and how awful they were. They seemed really worked up. I then heard Tyler say that they might have law enforcement waiting for someone at the end of the flight. I heard another female flight attendant say, "I didn't ask for that to happen." Tyler responded, "Well it's done!"

In the back of my mind I was thinking is he talking about us? I quieted my fears and thought it must be the man they had threatened to extradite. By the conversations I was picking up in the back from the flight attendants it seemed like Tyler really enjoyed the power and was excited to watch seeing someone get kicked off. It was like he could use it at his next gathering of flight attendants where they could tell the crazy stories of what had happened to them. Not okay at the expense of a family just trying to get home with as little problems as possible. Well luckily it wasn't law enforcement, but it was Alaska Airlines employees who handed us a letter that said our connecting flight had been canceled and we are now banned from flying with Alaska Airlines. We tried to tell them that we had tried to comply and that it had been exaggerated, but they wouldn't even let us talk.

So here we are a young family of 5, stranded in LA. The same day flights were all $1000 for each family member. We rode a bus to Enterprise who was all out of one way cars. (At this point of the journey I'm holding back tears.) Luckily, there was an amazing employee there. We told him what happened. He got us a van even though he knew he might get in trouble. Honestly, it healed my heart to see someone care after we were treated so badly. We then drove home and arrived safely the next day. All is well that ends well.... except I thought this should be shared. I would never entrust Alaska Airlines with the safety of my family again.

I called Reservation to express my frustration and had to insist on getting a refund of the difference instead of getting more vouchers for future travel. I also tried to reach out to management by completing their online form and waited over a month just to get an email letting me know that they cannot help me. That I need to call Reservation to complain. I get it Alaska Airlines - you just don't care about your customers any longer. I finally got your message and will no longer travel with you. Thank you.

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.

We had a 45 minute layover... I let them know that before boarding and I was told that "45 minutes was plenty of time"... It wasn't. The flight released us late because no one was at the gate to get us off so we sat on the tarmac for about a half hour making us late for our next flight. But that didn't matter because our next flight was delayed 3.5 hours... I begged to be put on a flight to another airport in the DC area (there were two leaving shortly, one to BWI and one to Dulles)... They had enough seats for my family but they complained the employees I spoke to complained that the paperwork would "take 5 minutes" and were absolutely unwilling to help us. I guess they already had our money so didn't care if we were happy or not. Both planes were old and beat up.. Totally uncomfortable. I fly quite often and have never had so many problems. Never again, Alaska Airlines.

It is absolutely absurd what they have done. Now I lost my vacation, I do not know when I will be able to have a new vacation from work. They have cost me a lot of money and are not even considering reimbursing me for my losses caused by their employees not doing their diligence. I am not satisfied with their conduct and handling their mistakes. I am so angry for losing the vacation I was dreaming of having after a tough year dealing with Covid stress. They are really the worst, please do yourself a huge favor, avoid Alaska Airlines.

My story: I have an existing travel credit (travel certificate) of $776.00 from Alaska airline with Justfly, but Justfly has consistently refused to release the ticked to me claiming that Alaska airline has put "airline control " on the certificate. But several weeks ago I had a three-way call with Alaska airline representatives (Cindy and Karen) and justfly representative Jonathan where Cindy of Alaska airline specifically told Justfly- Jonathan that was not true. Alaska reps instructed Jonathan that Justfly should remove the “ airline control” immediately and allow me to rebook my travel to anywhere that Alaska airline goes domestically.

I have spent hours and days and months on the phone with more than 4 reps of Justfly, but no resolution. I have just spoken to Mike (the second time I would talk to this guy). I requested to speak to a supervisor, but he danced around and again transferred my call to a non-responsive back-door support team. For over an hour, nobody answered the call. This online SCAM rejoices in squeezing their customers. I am disappointed that Alaska is doing business with a SCAM and fraudulent online company (Justfly.com). See:

The complaint notes that Justfly, which also does business as Flighthub, has accumulated more than 2,000 consumer air travel complaints with the Better Business Bureau in just two years, far more than any other travel agency. It has also drawn numerous complaints on social media and consumer and travel websites.

“Our lawsuit lays out the stunning array of undisclosed fees and predatory practices that Justfly employed,” says Herrera. "Consumers are entitled to honest and transparent pricing, not hidden fees and misleading disclosures." Herrera is seeking an injunction and penalties against Justfly, as well as restitution for consumers who lost money because of its allegedly unfair practices."

After much frustration, I came back to Alaska and spoke with Shannon. After confirming that Alaska has the custodian of the ticket, she then said to me that there was nothing Alaska could do to help me and that if I need to go to court, I should feel free to do so. That was a shock to me that a service airline would advise a customer to go to small claim court to resolve $776.00 ticket. SHAME ON SHANNON! The two tickets for my wife and I are in the Alaska reservations system and good to be used till 9/30 2021. Is there a decent and caring person at Alaska who can help my wife and I to ensure that we use the tickets between now and September to travel to anywhere Alaska goes?

Then 6 March, Alaska Air informed that there had been a change. Instead of a direct flight, there was now a connecting flight via San Diego i.e. a detour of approx 4 hours. With less than a month to spring break it wasn’t possible to find any alternative flights to a price which was affordable. This was of course by itself a big disappointment since we had to wake up at 3 AM to make it to the first flight and make this detour. When I did the web check-in on the 2 April, I realized that Alaska had changed seat assignments so the whole family was spread out across the plane. It wasn’t possible for me to change seats on the web since the planes on both legs were fully booked. I called to Alaska Air's customer service.

After 20 min in queue, I was told that they only could help to change seats at the airport. On the morning 3 April, we got to the airport. At the baggage drop I asked if they could help to reassign the seats so that my family could be together and I was told that they only could do this at the gate. At the gate, I got support and it was possible to reassign seats so that we all sat on the same row from Seattle to San Diego but on the long flight (6,5 hours) from San Diego to Kona it was not possible hence my family had to sit spread out in the plane.

When contacting Alaska Air customer support, I was told that situations like this can happen. I was offered some discount code on Alaska Air as courtesy. When asking to be refunded for what I paid extra for having the option to select seats, I only got the answer that they can’t refund a ticket which already is used and as per contract they have the rights to reassign seats at any time, which not is how the main cabin ticket option is explained at Alaska Airlines web page. Very bad customer experience and I would advise anyone thinking about traveling with Alaska Air to see if there are other options. Clearly they are not keeping their promises and you might get surprises if you are traveling as a family. I paid totally $445 for main fare tickets vs saver tickets, something that I couldn’t use and Alaska Air didn’t even refund this part.

At this point, l had become jittery and more confused. As luck would have it, l remembered that l had saved half of my sandwich, Macademia cookies and half coke from from my lunch at Subway. I was able to find them in my bag after a long search. I just couldn’t remember where in my bag l had placed the leftover from my lunch. I ate one of the cookies and finished the remainder of my drink. This really helped me but l didn’t know how long this sugar boost would last. I still had three hours of flight time ahead of me.

Now, the flight attendant showed up after more than one hour following my request for help with something sweet to drink. He came to where l was and apologized for having forgotten my drink. I told him that that was fine and that l found the Cola drink that l brought with me. I told him that l would still appreciate getting another Cola drink seeing that l did not know if l would experience another glucose drop. He told me that he will right way and left.

I did not see him again. Nor did l talk to another flight attendant about my request. I just did not because l did not want it to sound that l was complaining about the failure of the male attendant. Well, close to 20 minutes before. We reached our destination, this flight attendant showed up with some Milage deal that Alaska Airline was offering. The offer appeared attractive and l was almost tempted to sign up for it. Then, l thought otherwise. That their attendant had ignored my cry for help combat my emergent health condition. I shared my concern with him. And he told me that he had forgotten my request for something to help me with. He had forgotten for the second time. Really? I didn’t know what make of his excuse except that l felt that he endangered my life.