Alaska Airlines subscription service 'All Access' has been a major disappointment

25.09.2024 - 13:41 / thepointsguy.com

Back in March, Alaska Airlines launched a new subscription service requiring a $5-per-month payment to get early access to Alaska fare sales, a personalized fare page and free Wi-Fi credits — the Seattle-based airline calls the service "Alaska Access." I was excited to test it out since, at the time, Alaska said it would give subscribers advance notice to some of its biggest deals of the year.

I eagerly signed up to try it out for TPG, shelling out $5 a month. Now that it's been half a year, I wanted to share the results of my experiment.

What a disappointment.

Unless Alaska makes this more compelling soon, I will cancel my subscription. Still, it might be worth it for a few very frequent Alaska flyers.

I reached out to Alaska Airlines about the issues I was seeing.

"Alaska Access is a new and evolving subscription service, and we genuinely appreciate feedback on it," a carrier spokesperson said in an email. "We are committed to listening closely to our guests, as we do with all of our products and services, and are actively working to ensure the benefits of the subscription align with the needs and expectations of our valued subscribers."

If you're weighing whether to consider subscribing, here's what you need to know.

The biggest selling point of the Alaska Airlines All Access program is an early heads-up about sales on Alaska Airlines flights — what a letdown. If you want to get notified early, you'll need to check the app every day. There are no email notifications sent to passengers; you have to hope to get lucky when checking the app. That's if you get notified at all. Below are just a few of the many sales Alaska sent to my email inbox that I never saw in my Alaska Airlines app messages.

I caught lightning in a bottle just once during my membership so far. I noticed a message in the app that there was a three-day sale taking place. The problem? I only saw the notification Aug. 7, and the sale ended Aug. 8. So, I couldn't beat the public to the sale.

I do check the app regularly, and this is the one and only early access notification I've gotten in six months of membership.

According to Alaska's announcement about the feature, "With your Alaska Access subscription, we will notify you about the sale the night before it hits our site."

I just haven't found that to be the case. Hopefully, Alaska will take this feedback and find a better way to communicate these deal alerts. It's totally unacceptable that a promised benefit isn't being delivered consistently.

Since this is one of the main selling points of the subscription, fixing it would improve the value of the feature.

When I spoke with Alaska Airlines about the issues, the carrier told me the sale notifications are only sent in the app because