Alaska Airlines has held the position of being my favorite company to fly with for years. They have some of the easiest-to-use websites and mobile apps, their planes are impeccably maintained and updated, their in-seat power and entertainment systems are top notch, their service is always friendly and I personally always appreciated the Christian company's Bible verse mentions on meal prayer cards until they did away with them several years ago, unfortunately succumbing to pressures of political correctness.
But recently I was dismayed by the airline's 20-minute baggage guarantee, once an offering I held in high regard.
Returning from a Disney Cruise Line sailing, I was onboard a super convenient nonstop flight with my fiancee from Orlando, Florida to our hometown of San Diego, California. Upon our plane's arrival at the gate, I started up my iPhone's stopwatch to time how quickly we would retrieve our bags from the carousel.
The airline says since 2010 it has offered the guarantee that if your bags are not at the claim within 20 minutes then you are entitled to a $25 discount code eligible towards a future flight or 2,500 air mile credits applied to your mileage plan.
While I've never had to invoke the guarantee before, this time I was excited by the promise of 2,500 miles to my account when the baggage carousel jammed and delayed our bags beyond the allotted 20 minutes; nothing major, only about two minutes over, but enough to qualify. So, after securing our luggage, I confidently marched off to Alaska's baggage services desk to happily get my miles. The only problem was the agent told me the guarantee doesn't apply in cases of mechanical failure. I was dismayed but left the counter amicably.
Sure enough, if you look at the fine print of the guarantee online, it reads, "Alaska Airlines reserves the right to suspend the Baggage Service Guarantee in the event of airport baggage system malfunction, severe weather, or other conditions out of the airlines' control that prohibit timely baggage delivery."
Now I get that weather is entirely outside of anyone's control, but shouldn't this guarantee be honored in other situations? I mean, why have a guarantee that is dependent on airport equipment to carry it out in an expedited fashion if a fault in that variable forfeits the deal? If that's the case, they shouldn't offer it unless they are in full control of every step along the way from plane to claim.
To be fair, Delta Air Lines offers a similar guarantee with the same restriction. I just wonder if they both shouldn't do away with the program if they can't honor it from start to finish, save for the aforementioned weather occurrence. You would think they could ante up some extra in the way of financial insurance to entirely follow through with the guarantee and cover the credits or miles seemingly owed to the customer.
Nonetheless, I remain very fond of Alaska Airlines, especially after a separate fluke situation that required my parents and I to swap planes twice before arriving at our final destination. We had to disembark one plane for another before taking off, and then we had to make a precautionary landing back at the departure airport after a warning indicator illuminated in the second cockpit, requiring us to board yet a third plane that eventually got us there. Even before our arrival, Alaska had emailed us with a consolation credit that was most welcome.
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