What A-Pay Decoder does

Alaska flight-attendant pay is genuinely hard to check. A single trip is credited across many categories — flight pay, per diem, boarding, over-duty and other premiums, longevity — split between Rainmaker and your PeopleSoft pay advice, and it's paid the month after you fly. A-Pay Decoder reads those documents right on your device, shows what each trip should pay straight from the AFA-CWA contract, and checks it against what Alaska actually credited and deposited — so you can catch a shortfall and take the exact contract section to your rep or Crew Pay. Nothing you upload ever leaves your phone unless you choose to send it with a report.

How to get your PDFs

Three documents power this site. All of them come from Alaska's own systems, and all of them can be saved as PDFs right from your phone.

Saving anything as a PDF on an iPhone

You'll use this trick for the trip detail and the Rainmaker:

1. From the page you want, tap Share (the square with the arrow), then Print.
2. On the print preview, pinch out (zoom) on the page thumbnail — it opens as a full PDF.
3. Tap Share again and choose Save to Files (or AirDrop / text it to yourself).

Saving anything as a PDF on Android

The same idea in Chrome, for the trip detail and the Rainmaker:

1. From the page you want, tap the three-dot menu (top right), then Share, then Print. If the page has its own Print button (Rainmaker does), that opens the same print screen.
2. At the top of the print screen, tap the printer dropdown and choose Save as PDF.
3. Tap the round PDF button, pick a folder (Downloads is fine), and tap Save.

• Samsung Internet: tap the menu (three lines, bottom right), then Print/PDF, and carry on from step 2.
• Print button does nothing?The page probably opened inside another app. Open it in Chrome (that app's menu, then Open in Chrome) and try again.
• Want it on paper? Choose your printer in step 2 instead of Save as PDF, or open the saved PDF from the Files app and print it from there.

1 · Trip detail (Roster Trip Information)

1. On your phone, sign in to Crew Access.
2. Open the trip from your schedule and bring up its details report.
3. Save it as a PDF using the iPhone or Android steps above.

2 · Rainmaker (Crew Pay Details)

From Alaska's Rainmaker FA User Guide:

1. Open Rainmaker and sign in with your Alaska single sign-on.
2. Open Current Period (or Search Reports for an earlier month).
3. Expand the pay buckets you want included — the master [+] on the far right of the Crew member profile row expands everything at once.
4. Tap More (top right) → Print, choose your options, and select Print.
5. Save the print preview as a PDF using the iPhone or Android steps above. On Android, Rainmaker's Print opens the print screen for you, so start at step 2.

A trip that crosses into the next month is compared under the month it started. When the next month's Rainmaker carries only that trip's remaining per diem, the app shows that share on the later month and does not ask you to upload the trip again. If a duty period of that trip reported on the 1st or later, the later month's Rainmaker also credits that day's flying. For now, the later month still lists the trip number under trips to add, and uploading the trip sheet again will not clear it. The month the trip started may also read that day's flying as short until this is handled.

3 · Paystub (pay advice)

1. Open PeopleSoft employee self-service— the same place you'd update your W-4 or direct deposit.
2. Open your pay advices and pick the one you want. Each advice is already a PDF.
3. Download it or save it to Files.

Then upload it here

• Trip detail → open My Trips & Pay and tap Add documents — the site works out which file is which.
• Rainmaker and paystubs → same place: open My Trips & Pay and tap Add documents.
• You can select several PDFs at once — the site works out which document is which.

Keeping your history safe

Everything you save here lives only in this browser, on this device. It can go away:

• if you clear Safari's history or website data,
• in private browsing or an Incognito window — nothing saved there survives closing it,
• on a computer, if Chrome is set to delete site data when you close all windows (check Settings → Privacy and security → Site settings → On-device site data),
• after about a week of using Safari without visiting this site— Safari tidies up by deleting site data it hasn't seen used recently,
• on any other device or browser — your history never leaves this one, so it can't follow you on its own.

Back it up: on My Trips & Pay, tap Back up— it downloads one small file with your saved trips and documents. A good habit is one backup after you finish a month's uploads. Moving to a new phone or computer? AirDrop or copy the file across and tap Restorethere — restoring adds to what's already saved and never wipes your ledger; anything saved in both places keeps the backup's copy.

Or add this site to your Home Screen: in Safari, tap Share (the square with the arrow) → Add to Home Screen (on Android: browser menu → Add to Home screen). Opened from that icon, the site runs as its own app — and Safari's week-long cleanup no longer applies to it.

Notes and reserve days

Each saved trip has a notes box. Write whatever helps you check it against Rainmaker or a paystub. Notes stay on your device and are never included in a report.

If you traded a trip away for reserve days, open the trip and tick "I traded this trip away for reserve days." The trip's own credit drops out of the month and each reserve day counts at least 5.0 TFP (CBA 11.G.4). If you were assigned a trip on one of those days, add it like any other trip: the app credits it against the day and adds the $2.50 per TFP reserve premium. This is our reading of the contract until a real Rainmaker confirms it, so the month shows a note asking you to report your first reserve month.

What we count

So we know what to build next, the app records a few anonymous milestones, like that a trip was decoded or a month was checked. Each one is just the name of the thing that happened plus a random ID for your device. When an upload fails, it also records which of our checks turned it down (for example, “not a PDF”), never anything from the file itself.

If the app asks you a quick question, like whether you’d use a radiation tracker, your answer is counted the same way: just the answer and that random device ID.

That counting never includes your documents, your name, your employee ID, your trip numbers, or any dollar amount. Your PDFs are still read entirely on your device and never uploaded unless you choose to send one with a report.

There is one other way something reaches us, and only if you choose it: if an upload fails, the “Report this to Chris” button under the message fills in the file name and the line we couldn’t read — and, if a trip failed to price, its trip number and leg routes too. You see exactly what it says and can edit or delete it first, and nothing is sent until you tap “Send feedback.” When a file is not recognized, that report also offers a box to send us the original file. It is unticked unless you tick it, it goes by email to Chris, and it is deleted once the problem is fixed.

The feedback form also has an “OK to quote me” box, which starts unticked every time. Tick it only if you’re happy for us to share what you wrote on our website or social media, credited to the first name you give or to Anonymous, never with your last name or email.