Update: Alaska Airlines Price Guarantee

Alaska Airlines Price GuaranteeEarlier this year I wrote about the Alaska Airlines Price Guarantee.  I always encourage people to book direct with the hotel, airline, or rental car agency.  Not only do you usually get the best rate, but you also don’t have to worry about a third party middle man screwing things up.  When you book at alaskaair.com you also get the benefit of the Alaska Airlines Price Guarantee.

 

I live in Seattle so Alaska is my default airline for domestic travel.  They are punctual.  I can’t remember the last time I was delayed more than 30 minutes.  They offer one of the best frequent flier programs with flexibility for domestic and international travel.  And they have great customer service.  For the past 8 years they have ranked as the #1 North American airline by JD Power.

The Alaska Airlines Price Guarantee is a unique program that allows you to get a credit for a future flight if your ticket price drops any time up until you actually board the plane.  The only other domestic carrier that does this is AirTran.  Other airlines have programs that will give you a credit if the price drops more than a certain dollar amount ($75-$200 depending on the airline).  But Alaska will give you a credit even if it drops $1.

The catch is that YOU have to track the price yourself.  This can be tedious (having to check every week or so), but I use Yapta which will track the price for you and alert you if the price falls.

I started tracking my ticket prices with Alaska about two years ago.  In that time, I have had 7 round trip flights that dropped in price.

One flight, a positioning flight for my upcoming trip to Istanbul, has dropped 4 times (that I know of).  Each time I have used the Alaska Airlines Price Guarantee to receive a refund.  I have received a total of $124 back on the flight.

For these 7 flights that have dropped in price, I have received a total of $424.11 in credits for future Alaska flights.

Sure, I could have just “waited” until the flights dropped to those prices.  But that is risky as prices often increase.  In that same two years I have had 13 round trip flights that have stayed the same or increased after my purchase.

It is this type of customer focused business that makes me stick with Alaska.  Have you used the Alaska Airlines Price Guarantee?

3 thoughts on “Update: Alaska Airlines Price Guarantee”

  1. I found your site from MMS. It’s nice to see some independent blogs out there! I’ll be flying Alaska for the first time, and found this piece of advice useful! Great work! 🙂

    Also, do you think you could make it easier to follow your blog on the wordpress platform? I went through some trouble to add your blog to my wordpress reader.

    Reply
    • Thanks for reading! Yes, it is hard to be an independent blog these days. I’d love to make some money from blogging, but have no desire to sell out or post credit card links that could influence my writing.

      I’ll work on making it easier to read on the wordpress reader. Honestly, I don’t know what that is but I promise I will learn it today and add it. Thanks for the suggestion!

      Reply
    • I have added a few follow options. Please take a look and try it out; hopefully you will find it useful. Any further suggestions are appreciated!

      Reply

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