Why fly United between two of its hubs when you can fly Alaska? (IAD-SFO)

After spending a week in Richmond, it was time to go back to California. To get back to DC, we actually drove up instead of taking the train, which is uncommon for me. After saying goodbye to the DC Zoo’s pandas, spending the night in DC, and playing tennis with a friend, it was time to fly back to San Francisco. Now, as I mentioned on the outbound post, United has at least 5 flights per day between IAD and SFO, but they’re not the only airline that flies the route. Alaska Airlines also operates a couple flights per day between the DC area and SFO. Having just flown United on the outbound (and the ticket being much cheaper), I flew Alaska back. 

I have heard from many sources that Alaska is supposed to have better flight attendants and in-flight service than American. I’ve tried to check that on the SF-LA routes, but those results were inconclusive because of the short flight times (and the use of regional aircraft on the route). This seemed like a great time to try them out on one of their longer flights.

Dulles has one big terminal entrance with 4 zones on the landside. One is reserved for United as you’d expect given its large presence at the airport. I checked my bags at the counter and then proceeded through PreCheck to the Capital One Lounge again. 

Since I was on a transcontinental flight on Alaska, I, in theory, had access to an Alaska Airlines lounge. This is a policy that’s unique to Alaska and actually has been watered down since they joined Oneworld. It used to be all paid First Class passengers on Alaska got lounge access. Now, only paid First Class passengers on transcontinental-length flights do. However, they don’t have one, and I had access to the Capital One Lounge anyway, which is definitely better than any Alaska lounge I’ve ever been in. 

Like last time, I made my way straight for the food:

I selected a small assortment. And then went back for a few more rounds of bao.

After eating in the lounge, I wanted to brush my teeth but had accidentally packed my toothbrush. Apparently, the Capital One lounge doesn’t have toothbrushes, which is weird. 

So I instead proceeded to the gate for our evening departure. I got to the gate a bit early, so I tried to go check out the British Airways Lounge, but I was denied entry. They claimed it’s their specific lounge’s policy to not let in travelers on domestic-only itineraries, even though I’m literally a BA Gold member. This is strictly against the stated policy for this lounge on the Oneworld website and is even sillier when you consider that they operate as a Priority Pass Lounge earlier in the day when there are no BA flights.

Now, the real reason was almost certainly just that the lounge was very crowded because an A380 was departing soon. But on the plus side, they did have a toothbrush for me, which was great.

So at this point, I wasn’t too impressed with Alaska’s ground game: I didn’t have a lounge I could access based on my ticket or based on my status. Then, when I boarded later in the process and tried to use the priority line, I was let through, but the gate agent looked at me like she had never seen anyone ever try to use priority boarding at a time when priority boarding wasn’t being called.

I took my favorite seat: 1D, and looking at the upgrade list, I think if I had AA/AS Oneworld Emerald status I probably would’ve scored a free upgrade, which would’ve been cool. But alas.

I don’t know if I really love staring at the carpet on the bulkhead that Alaska uses for such a long flight. Especially because it seems like it’d be hard to clean.

Before the flight, I had pre-ordered the smoked salmon bowl. I always appreciate being able to select a meal ahead of time, especially on US carriers that (as far as I’m aware) only cater the correct number of meals and no extras.

I did not like the tray; I’m sure it’s sustainable, but the wood just felt a bit odd. I also really don’t like wooden utensils (which this tray did not have), but that probably colored my opinion of the tray more than it should have.

The salad was a bit small, but the raspberry dressing was good. The hot smoked salmon was not particularly exciting, but the bread was great! The meal really gave off “airplane food” vibes for me, haha.

After the meal, I ordered some Bailey’s and was happily offered an equivalent Irish cream drink on the rocks, which was very good.

Then I was served a small pot of ice cream, which was just alright.

The two drink services and the meal service went at an appropriate pace in my opinion for the length and timing of the flight.

In summary, I would’ve definitely preferred to have flown American on this flight. This flight is most similar in structure to my CLT-SFO flight last year or my ATL-LAX flight in September. Since I should have had access to an Alaska/Oneworld lounge unlike when I flew United, Alaska will not earn any points off the Capital One Lounge. And so my ground experience was just a 1/5 at IAD. The First Class seat was comfortable but a bit dated at this point (3/5). The food was not very good and was pretty small (2/5). The service was fine but really had no personality (3/5). The streaming IFE and Wi-Fi were fine as well (3/5). Overall, this flight gets a 12/25, which puts it pretty low on the list of flights for 2023. It’s not that I actively had a bad time, but I think I would’ve had a better experience on a similar flight on American. 

I paid about $600 for this flight on my Amex Platinum and credited it to BA. I earned 3024 Avios and 140 tier points for this flight (as well as around 3 000 Amex points). At this point, the tier points weren’t that important to me because as soon as I flew on BA two more times, I was set to retain my BA Gold status. The total points earned represented a 13% return on spend, which isn’t great but was fine. This was more a utility flight than anything. 

It does seem like I’ve had a lot of utility flights recently, but I promise that will change when I talk about my Thanksgiving trip to Europe.