Alaska Airlines has launched a new monthly subscription plan called ‘Alaska Access‘. This costs $5 per month with a 12 month commitment and provides the following:
- Early sale access (receive access the night before it goes live to the general public)
- One WiFi voucher every month (only valid for that month)
- Personalized fare page (lowest fares by money and miles to our more than 500 global destinations)
Our Verdict
Personalized fare page seems useless and just an advertising gimmick. WiFi normally costs $8 so that is a $3 saving if you fly and would pay for it monthly. Having early access to the sales could be useful to some people. I can’t really see something like this being a huge success without Alaska cannibalizing benefits that would normally go to frequent flier elites. Still there is some limited value here for frequent Alaska Airlines fliers.
Why pay for access when you can just crawl in through the missing door plug?
Another f****** subscription?!
SaaS
Spirit eyeballing this so they can start selling fares to only the exclusives Spirits Only members, a la Costco. Just pay $5 a month and you too can join the super member’s exclusive yellow bus of the sky!
Living on the west coast, I do fly Alaska round trip a handful of times each year. The only thing that would make me consider biting on this offer is all-access wi-fi (without the single-use code). But the fact you are getting free wi-fi on one segment, not even round trip, is weak.
You’d have to fly Alaska routinely once a month and already have planned to purchase wi-fi to make any sense of handing over $60/yr. And then you’ll need to pay $8 for the wi-fi on each return segment!
This is a natural extension of airline cards — get mile hoarders hooked on to their subscriptions, eventually people with _only_ miles and no subscription get short end of the stick. Just another squeeze.
I loved you in fargo, sir.
Well for the early access, all you really need is one member of the community to have it. Alaska offers a 24 hr price drop guarantee, so if your worried about availability you can book the night before and then price adjust it in the morning.
Not even going to dig through T&C but I bet there’s an exclusion for those with this vs those without.
Just trying to raise money to fix all doors on all of their Boeing 737s.
Does the $5/month plan give you access to the planes that do not have pieces falling off?
No. All their planes are Boeing.
take things you already have and repackage them into a subscription “membership” is the hottest trend now
Garbage Deal I BEG you all NOT to fall for this crap B