Almost a year into the Alaska and Hawaiian tie-up and there are still some rough edges. Sharing this so others don’t get burned.
Booked a roundtrip to Hawaii back in October on the Alaska site. Outbound on Hawaiian, return on Alaska. Used a companion fare. Alaska leg let me pick and pay for seats normally. For the Hawaiian leg, I had to click through to Hawaiian’s site and buy seats there in a separate transaction. No email receipt, which already felt sketchy, but both airlines showed my seats correctly afterward so I didn’t worry.
Fast forward to now. Alaska’s site still shows my Hawaiian seats as assigned. Click “change seats,” get sent to Hawaiian… and suddenly there are no seats assigned at all. It wants me to pay again, and the seats I originally picked are gone.
Called Alaska. They said seats look fine on their end but told me to call Hawaiian. Called Hawaiian. They said the seat purchase was basically incomplete and re-assigned us new seats for free, but not the original ones. Now both sites show seats again, but the system thinks I didn’t pay. If I try to change seats, it charges full price.
So yeah, if you booked Hawaiian flights via Alaska and preselected seats, especially paid ones, go double check now. Don’t assume what Alaska shows is what Hawaiian actually has.
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