Alaska is a great airline. I fly about 70k miles per year on them and am very rarely disappointed.
Personally, I hate Alaska. I fly ~2/month & avoid Alaska if I can. My wife's family is from Seattle, so sadly, they're unavoidable around the holidays.
Some grievances:
* Ridiculous fees. Before we were married my wife booked two flights for after we were married. She changed her name & realized that would cause a problem with those tickets. Southwest made the name change without a fuss. Alaska charged us $100.
When we protested & explained she had gotten married, the agent responded: "Every airline does this." "We just did it with Southwest & they didn't charge anything." "We don't consider Southwest competition."
* Alaska’s 20 Minute Bag Guarantee felt like a sham. It's no longer running (I believe), but multiple times my bags took over 30 minutes. Each time it took nearly an hour to get someone to give a voucher. And the vouchers are very limited.
* They charge for simple modifications to tickets.
* They charge for bags.
* Consistent long lines at LAX & SEA.
* Older planes. Both coach & first are C+ compared to other airlines.
* In-flight personal aren't as bad as United, but they're certainly not nice. Southwest & Virgin set the bar here & Alaska is far from it.
At any rate, you just spoke to to someone who didn't know the company policies well enough, Alaska doesn't charge for name changes due to marriage. It's actually the only exception AFAIK. You have to present some paperwork as proof, but it can be done. You just happened to talk to someone who was not aware this exception existed. You could have asked to talk to someone else.
Also, consistent long lines at LAX & SEA? Do you have any suggestion on how the airline has any control over how quickly they can check people in?
Most airlines these days charge for bags, especially for domestic flights.
I don't come to the US often, but in my limited experience I've had a better flight on Alaska than the majority of US based airline providers.
Seems like there is a systemic failure - their food oversubscription system doesn't correct for a fact that on a six hour flight almost every passenger will buy food.
Bought 2 tickets (one for me, one for GF). She was assigned a seat, I was told they don't allot all seats for any given flight and that I would get that seat at the gate. Couldn't change through Alaska Airlines phone/web portal. At the gate they gave me a seat in the very back of the plane since all the other seats had been assigned. It's crazy to me that I couldn't choose seats on purchase - especially when buying 2 together.
I also never get the feeling the check in agents are just mailing it in. I've had bad experiences before with agents before (a tired AA agent once just through my suitcase on to the belt right after I told him I was checking in a firearm), but it seems Alaska cares a lot more and they're better trained (more consistent).
They also are a great community partner here and sponsor a lot of events and organizations including things like Pride celebrations.