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A Tip To Extend Alaska Companion Passes Past Their Expiration Date
PDX Deals Guy wanted to share a tip to extend Alaska companion passes past their expiration date. You get these passes from holding one of the Alaska credit cards. There are currently increased offers on some of their cards as well. Here is what he has to say about the process.
How To Extend Alaska Companion Passes
Things to know for people with current Alaska bookings (using a Companion Pass). This is also useful for people with soon-to-expire Companion passes (with book-by/expiration dates before 6/30/21). Alaska’s Twitter rep (amazingly helpful & friendly) just told me the following:
“Right now, we are making an exception that if you book using your companion fare and are unable to travel we will replace the code after you cancel with a code valid for 3 months. Prior to Covid, they weren’t replaced. We have only been authorized to issue replacements through 03/31 and after that point, you would need to change the ticket instead of cancelling if you wanted to retain your companion fare and not just the ticket value. I don’t believe this is on our website as it has always been an exception and not policy to reissue them.”
What Does This Mean?
- If you have a current CP booking (made during “Covid times” – not sure the exact date range) and you aren’t certain you are going to use it (as booked), you would be best off to cancel the reservation on (or shortly before to be safe) 3/31/21. They will then put the amount you paid into your AS Wallet (believe you have a year to use it). And then they will re-issue you a new CP with a book-by/expiration date of roughly 12 months after when your current booking was made. For example, I booked a Companion Pass in Nov 2020 (because it was about to expire) for travel (that I don’t think I’ll use now) in Sept of 2021. If I cancel it by 3/31, I will get a new CP with a book-by/expiration date in Nov 2021. If I don’t cancel it by 3/31, I pretty much have to travel on my original reservation or change it to a booking before that Sept 2021 date (can change routing and date, but not passenger names – just paying the difference in fares). I might be able to re-book to a date out to 330 or 365 days after my original Nov 2020 booking, but out to Nov 2021 at the latest. As you can see, by cancelling and getting issued a new CP (with book-by/expiration date in Nov 2021), I effectively increase my time to use the CP by a year or so. (Taking advantage of their Covid change policies – but have to lock it in by cancelling by 3/31.)
- If you have a soon-to-expire CP (with book-by/expiration dates much before 6/30/21), and you aren’t certain of how you are going to use it, you want to book something (any cheap reservation using the CP) by 3/29/21, and cancel it by 3/31/21 (or 3/30 to be safe). Then they will re-issue you a new CP with a book-by/expiration date of 3 months after when you cancel (so roughly 6/30/21).
Interesting that 1 is better than 2. But that’s because those previously/already-booked CP reservations were under more lenient Covid change/cancel policies.
Exceptions/things-to-consider:
- Do NOT cancel any of the old “free/$0” companion pass reservations (or just know that if you do, the re-issued CP will not be “free” – it will be $99/$121-with-fees/taxes)
- If you have already changed/extended a companion pass reservation from way-back (like over a year), you should Twitter DM with them to make sure that you can cancel and get your CP re-issued
- Similar to “b” – probably worth checking with AS Twitter to be sure before you do anything, just to make sure it will work as expected.
Final Thoughts
Some good tips from PDX Deals Guy on how to extend your Alaska companion pass expiration date. Like he says, it doesn’t hurt to check with their Twitter team before doing anything so you have something in writing. They seem to have a pretty solid team working social media so it should be pretty painless.
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