[Umpireernie]

Originally Posted by Gromit801

Alaska doesn't have standby seating. You can pay $25 to get on a different flight, which I'm guessing you didn't want to do.

Why would you assume this was about me not wanting to pay $25?

Had that option been available it would have been offered to me upon check in at Spokane. In fact, had the seats been available to reserve in advance I would have booked the better connection in the first place.

Keep in mind I was NOT changing my return date and time, I was just trying to shorten my layover in SEA. So no, I don't see why the airline should get an extra $25 bucks. Haviing said that, if at any point I would have had the option to confirm the better connection for $25 I would have paid it and breathed easy.

You say Alaska does not have standby seating. Yet I have gone thru this same song and dance many a time in SEA. This is obviously some new thing where standby is allowed in some markets (the markets they compete with Southwest I noticed) but not others.

Except that they DO allow standby; I stayed in the gate house and watched the gate agent call standby passengers. Then she made an announcement to "everyone else on standby" that the flight was now full and she would move everyone else to the standby list for the next flight. Gonna stick with the story that AS does not offer standby seating??

I just don't see the upside for the airline for doing this to me. I can't even see a short sighted, screw the customer as long as we squeeze out another buck sort of reason for doing this.

But don't hang your hat on me being cheap as the reason for screwing me over. Try again, if you can.

[Umpireernie]

As of today it's been a week since I emailed my complaint about this to AS customer service.

The silence of the non-reply is deafening.