I'm getting disenchanted with Alaska Air!

[DeniseM]

I found a so-so flight to Kauai, but I couldn't find a decent return flight on Alaska Airlines for miles or money. So I bailed out and booked [the return flight] with Hawaiian Airlines instead. By applying for a Hawaiian Airlines credit card and qualifying (during the ticketing process), I received a $300 credit, so I book a direct flight home, in first class, with Hawaiian Airlines. After the $300 credit, the tickets were $778 each, total. easy peasy

 

[Ken555]

I found a so-so flight to Kauai, but I couldn't find a decent return flight on Alaska Airlines for miles or money. So I bailed out and booked with Hawaiian Airlines instead. By applying for a Hawaiian Airlines credit card and qualifying (during the ticketing process), I received a $300 credit, so I book a direct flight home, in first class, with Hawaiian Airlines. After the $300 credit, the tickets were $778 each, total. easy peasy

Did you consider booking one way on Alaska and the return on Hawaiian?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[DeniseM]

That is what I did.

 

[free2travel]

They all offer a commodity service

The all treat their service like a commodity. It most certainly should not be. For people who get only 1 or 2 weeks vacation per year that they fly to, having the airline get the arrival, the departure and the baggage right should not be considered a commodity. There is a huge difference if, as people said above, someone flies to Hawaii for 7 days and Day 1 and Day 7 are cut off at the knees by lousy flights, or if a lost bag screws up Day 1 & 2 or etc.
But, yes, they all do treat it like a commodity. That is their mindset.

 

[zentraveler]

FWIW, we have really good luck with United not the cheapest but reliable and customer service is good now.

 

[slip]

FWIW, we have really good luck with United not the cheapest but reliable and customer service is good now.

Same for us. We used them exclusively to fly anywhere we went. We have their cards and have taken many many miles flights. We have one next week for our first trip back to the mainland in five years.

 

[zentraveler]

Same for us. We used them exclusively to fly anywhere we went. We have their cards and have taken many many miles flights. We have one next week for our first trip back to the mainland in five years.

And since we fly out of SFO it is very smooth. And luckily for most nonstop.

 

[DeniseM]

Here's the deal - we can fly direct with no stops on Hawaiian airlines for a 5 1/2 hour flight, or the shortest flight on Alaska Airlines had a layover, and is an 8 1/2 hour flight, that gets in at 11:00 pm - then we have a 1.5 hr. drive home. And that's the BEST flight available. So at least this time, Hawaiian looks a lot better to us. And getting $300 off the cost of 1st class seats didn't hurt either! We'll watch this closely going forward.

 

[artringwald]

Our flights from MSP to LIH are complicated because we have so many rules.
1) No flight should be more than six hours, so we stopover for a night in an airport hotel each way.
2) All flights should be non-stop first class.
3) Can't leave too early in the morning.
4) Can't arrive to late, and no overnight flights.
5) Arrival time in LIH should be mid-afternoon.

The best cities to stopover vary year by year. Next winter is looks like LAX on the way out and SFO on the way back, but times and prices may change. Here's my spreadsheet so far.

 

[jehb2]

I too use to like Alaska Airline. My husband and I each got their credit card so that we could take advantage of the free companion ticket. That made tickets to Hawaii for our family of four really reasonable. But their routes from Texas to Hawaii were always terrible. Most routes required three airplanes and or an overnight stay in Seattle. I would book the best possible route but would have to check my reservation routinely because they would always change it to something horrendous. Not exaggerating.

Luckily for us Southwest finally started flying to Hawaii. The total cost of 4 Southwest tickets to Hawaii beats two regular tickets +2 free companion tickets to Hawaii on Alaska air.