Alaska's House of Horrors Operations cost me $2800 for new flights on vacation
Yes, let get this out of the way... 7 people missed the flight to Kona due to 8lbs and 2 hour recommended arrival.
Traveling with family, 8 year old and a new infant in Sacramento Airport
Left at 5am arrived at airport check in at 6am, flight was at 7:30am
Tagged and paid for luggage and sat in line for 30mins to check in baggage
My son and daughter-in-law failed the luggage 50lbs limit (56lbs, 52lbs) on their bags and was told they could not check in baggage, must wait in guest services line and pay $100 additional fees. NOTE: after waiting in baggage check in line there is NO WAY to pay for them right there. I begged them to help take the luggage and I can pay them right there. They insisted I must use the other guest services line and lectured me to be at the airport 2 hours before flight.
Guest services was a line approximately additional 30 minutes long. We had to abandon my son and daughter-in-law and infant to get through security.
Waited and got to security and passes I printed at home on the Alaska Airlines check in web side printed in tandem and were un-scannable. We could not pass security. Security pointed us to the automated machine to print new boarding passes next to the security line. However, that machine was only for Southwest. Quickly took the tram and ran down to Alaska Check-in and used their machines....
Alaska Airlines removed the capability to print boarding passes on the machines.
I immediately started yelling at the staff I needed help, they took sweet time to respond and fumbled printing the boarding passes, their machines did not work.
My son and daughter-in-law were informed to bypass the guest services line and go to the gate with their luggage. They headed up to security line.
My wife found a security agent willing to let us through with the degraded boarding passes but at that time it was too late, we all missed the flight.
Alaska staff were pretty much unhelpful, the louder I got the more distant they got. They are not customers first, if you travel with an infant, they do not care, basically you’re just a number to them.
This was booked through Costco Travel, so all control of changing flights had to be through the 3rd party.
Apparently missing a flight causes the return flight to be deleted and resold by Alaska Airlines. We had the Alaska manager aware of our intent to get to Kona but was not able to stop the loss of return flight.
Alaska Airline and Costco could not rebook us, and the $12K paid for vacation was potentially a complete loss.
We opted to buy all new tickets with Southwest. Southwest Airlines did a bang-up job helping us get on their flight at the last minute. Thank you, Southwest Airlines!!!
I managed to get $1200 refund for the cancelled return flight from Costco Travel. But in all a $2800 loss to buy Southwest tickets up and return flights.
- Alaska Airlines - Failed to accept credit cards for oversized baggage on baggage check-in
- Alaska Airlines - Web check in the printed boarding passes failed security agent check in
- Alaska Airlines - Automated machines do not print boarding passes (Southwest, United does!)
- Alaska Airlines - Understaffed lines with large flights on check-in
- Alaska Airlines - Staff with no empathy, regard, or care for your wellbeing (with infant) in trying to make flight
- Alaska Airlines - Resold my return tickets for a higher profit when I requested them to keep them active with the on-staff manager
It will be a cold hard day when I try to fly Alaska Airlines again. 8lbs over = $2800 loss
I will be posting this complaint in Southwest Airlines and United Airlines forums.