EMail From Alaska Airlines: 'You've been upgraded.'

The pleasing email came to Brian, even though it was Kathy who made the reservation.

We're flying from Bellingham to Seattle to Albuquerque today (BLI-SEA-ABQ), and have been wondering when or if we'd be upgraded to First Class, in light of our new "exalted" status as Alaska 100k flyers. 120 hours came and went, as did 72, 48, and 24. Alaska was still offering First Class seats for sale on this fight, and we could spot four vacant seats in various parts of First Class on the seat map.

Finally, around 22 hours before our flight, the upgrade notice arrived. We'd previously gotten advice from experienced Alaska flyers that we should "split" our booking, as we used to do on United, to allow us to be upgraded one at a time as seats became available. We discovered we were number 2 and 3 on a list of 26! That number 1 must be somebody extra special, or more likely another 100K, of whom there are apparently many, who paid a higher fare.

In this instance, it didn't matter as we were assigned to window seats in two different rows. Kathy managed to switch Brian's seat to a vacant aisle in front of her row, so it may be possible to make a trade. Still, it's an 1180-mile flight of less than two hours, and not a big deal either way.