Alaska Airlines is a wonderful airline indeed. My 2 flights with them were purchased with credit card miles as part of an itinerary from Chicago, all ticketed in economy with my mom as a companion. All of my flights were marketed by American Airlines, but the two shortest legs, reviewed here, were code-shared with Alaska. It is a shame all my flights couldn't have been. On the way from LAX-SFO, we checked in late because of heavy traffic, and the security lines were out the door at LAX. The gracious check-in agent whisked us to the priority security line usually reserved for frequent flyers and First class. We sped through and were at the gate less than 15 minutes after arriving at the airport. We were among the last to board the aircraft, which was a relatively old MD-80. We found our seats at the wing, and were shocked to find that the legroom, width, and cleanliness of the seats and cabin were actually acceptible--not great, but acceptible, which is more than one can ask for these days. The seats were old and the cloth upholstery was worn, but still relatively clean and well-padded. We were in the air for only an hour and a half, and to our delight, we "cattle" in coach received no less than three beverage services. Not bad for a short hop in economy. On the way back from SFO-LAX, we arrived 2 hours early at the airport during the first hours of the terrorist scare. We checked in using the kiosk, and saw an intriguing little button onthe side of the screen labeled "upgrade to first class". Out of curiosity I touched it, and saw that they were only asking $50 per person. My credit card was in the kiosk before you could have said "legroom". We selected bulkhead seats from an empty first class cabin, and printed our coveted F boarding passes. We checked out baggage in the priority line with priority tags, but had to wait for over an hour in the regular securityline, as priority ones were unavailable with the tightened security. We boarded the plane, and received angry glares from the economy passengers, as the plane had apparently waited for several minutes for us. We received ice-cold water immediately, and the brand-new 737 pushed back immediately. The rest of the short flight was sheer bliss. We received the most delicious coffee I have ever had, and were given addicting little biscoff wafers. I actually got a few minuted of sleep in my spacious brown leather seat. The cabin in front was whisper-quiet, and the lavatory clean and fresh smelling. Amazing. Also noteworthy is that on this new plane, the economy seats looked much better than the MD-80. They were also leather, and were quite wide. We received about 7 beverage runs during the short flight, and were treated warmly and with humor by the dedicated first class flight attendant. We were the first off the plane, and decided to buy boardroom passes to wait for our connecting flight from LAX-ORD. After all that, it was hard to go back to the cruelly small, underpadded, worn blue coach seats that American Airlines uses on their domestic flights. Eew.