Alaska Airlines Selling Cash Upgrades More Aggressively

In recent years, US airlines have gotten much better at monetizing first class, rather than largely filling the cabin with elite members getting complimentary upgrades. This has come in many forms, from pricing first class more reasonably in the first place, to selling attractively priced first class upgrades.

Along those lines, historically Alaska hasn’t been nearly as aggressive as American, Delta, and United, when it comes to selling upgrades to first class. That’s slowly starting to change.

Alaska now consistently selling first class upgrades

Historically, Alaska hasn’t put much effort into selling first class upgrades in advance, prior to check-in. However, that appears to have changed, as Alaska is now consistently encouraging passengers to pay to upgrade to first class.

After you ticket your itinerary and manage your reservation, you’ll now consistently see the option to upgrade. For example, if you look at the economy seat map for your flight, you’ll also see the first class seat map, and then can select a first class seat at an extra cost, just as you can upgrade to a Premium Class seat.

This was only recently implemented, and as of now there are more questions than answers. It would appear that for the most part, the upgrade cost is simply the fare difference between economy class and first class. This is good news for those looking for a complimentary elite upgrade, and bad news for those looking to pay to upgrade.

Let me just give an example for a Fort Lauderdale to Seattle ticket that I had booked for $199.

After ticketing, when I went to Alaska’s website to manage my reservation and visited the seat map, I saw the ability to select first class seats at an extra cost. In this case, the cost is just over $400, which is the fare difference between economy and first class.

Similarly, if you go into the Alaska mobile app, you’ll see that most reservations now have a new indicator showing “Upgrade available.”

When you click through, you’ll see a pop-up showing the price and what’s included.

It would appear that this is being offered to most passengers, where you paid cash or redeemed miles, and regardless of your elite status. It’s not clear to me if you’d earn miles based on the higher class of service or not.

Now, some might say that this is no big deal, since it has always been possible to just rebook an economy ticket in first class by paying the fare difference. While that’s true, I wouldn’t underestimate the impact this could have on people upgrading:

• A lot of people traveling for business might be scared to reprice a ticket paid for through work, but if you can just pay the fare difference to upgrade with a couple of clicks, they may do so
• Many people may not otherwise consider booking first class or upgrading, but the prompt might be the push that they needed

Now, there are actually a couple of situations where it’s now possible for savvy travelers to pay to upgrade to first class, when that wasn’t previously possible:

• If you redeem Alaska Mileage Plan miles for your ticket, you can still pay cash to upgrade your ticket, and the fare difference between cabins is what you’d pay
• For those with an Alaska companion certificate, it appears that you can upgrade both passengers using this method, just paying the fare difference between the economy fare and first class fare; so this creates an incentive to book an expensive economy ticket with a companion fare, with a minimal fare difference to first class

Personally I do think this new prompt to upgrade to first class will move the needle a bit when it comes to people repricing their ticket and flying first class. However, it shouldn’t have the same impact as super discounted upgrades to first class, as we see at other US airlines.

Alaska still sells discounted upgrades at check-in

Separately from the above new opportunity, it’s worth noting that Alaska sometimes sells discounted upgrades to first class at check-in:

• This is only available at check-in, so starting 24 hours out
• Upgrade costs aren’t published, but are typically going to be very attractive, somewhere around $150 for a transcon flight
• Cash upgrades are only supposed to be available after all upgrades have cleared; however, Alaska’s upgrade processor has some issues, so there are situations where there might be “U” space (which is needed to upgrade) when there are still people on the upgrade list

Absolutely don’t expect to consistently see these upgrade opportunities, as they’re the exception rather than the norm. However, these will be the best value cash upgrades that you’ll find with the airline.

Bottom line

Alaska Airlines is seemingly getting more serious about monetizing first class. The airline is now pretty consistently offering cash upgrades through both the website and app when managing your reservation. For now, it seems to me that the upgrade cost is usually the fare difference, or somewhere around that.

From the perspective of diminishing elite perks, I don’t think this is nearly as bad as the super discounted upgrades that other airlines sell. However, this will surely increase demand for upgrades among people who may not have otherwise considered them.

What do you make of Alaska’s new approach to selling upgrades?