Standing by for a flight on American Airlines has become an absolute mess. There are new rules that very few customers know about, and failing to follow these secret changes is costing customers hours of their time.
There’s no more running to the gate to catch an earlier flight. American now turns away nearly all customers who try to do this, even when there’s plenty of seats available.
And as American pushes almost everyone to self-serve, the technology doesn’t work right. People are getting stuck in airports for no good reason at all – because the airline thinks it lowers their costs, but by becoming less efficient and burning customer goodwill they’re actually both driving up expenses and costing themselves revenue.
New American Airlines Rules For Getting On A Different Flight
American Airlines changed its rules this year to require customers to join the AAdvantage program in order to stand by for an earlier flight. Instead of pushing the rewards of the program, like free wifi at Delta, they’re often saying “we’ve screwed up and delayed you, and part of fixing screwups is being a member of AAdvantage.” But that isn’t all they did.
The problem is that customers do not know these are the new rules and also that the tech doesn’t work.
Not Knowing The New Rules Means Not Getting On The Flight You Need
Customers are showing up at the gate or customer service, standing in line, and by the time they get to the front of the line the agent says they cannot be helped – standby must be added online or through the app. If they’d known that they could have added themselves at least 45 minutes prior to departure of the flight. But, having wasted time in line, it’s now too late.
Using Required Self-Service Tools Still Gets You In Trouble
One reader reached out to me about a recent American Airlines trip where they wound up stranded at the airport for hours because American’s app didn’t work right to get them where they were going on standby. They also posted their story to social media.
An Executive Platinum in the AAdvantage program, they shouldn’t have to use the app. They’re still eligible to have an agent help them with standby. But things weren’t looking good for their travels, so they used the tool to get on the standby list when they were flying Washington Reagan National to Chicago O’Hare.
The app let them list standby for multiple flights. That turns out to be a glitch – the airline only means to allow a customer to stand by for one flight at a time. And this glitch ended up being very costly to the traveler.
- They showed up early enough to catch the 6 a.m. flight, and they were listed #1 for standby. The gate agent, though, said he wasn’t on the standby list at all because he was “on multiple lists.” The agent wouldn’t help correct things, said he was “busy” and then the agent skipped over this passenger clearing standbys.
- A supervisor told him he “violated a policy” by listing for multiple flights, as the app allowed him to do.
- Customer service reiterates that he’d broken policy but then acknowledges the app shouldn’t have allowed this and that the agent should have just taken him of the other lists and cleared him as #1 to stand by on the 6 a.m. He thought this agent cleared this up.
- Flight after flight he got blame and excuses and wound up at the airport for 14 hours.
I’ve verified this happened, it shouldn’t have, and that American should only have allowed standby for one flight at a time. They’re working to find and address the cause, but it was their fault. The self-service tools we’re all supposed to use now caused this passenger to get stuck for a day.
You Must Use The App, But It Can’t Do What Agents Used To
Another reader was flying Montreal to Charlotte and on to Raleigh. They arrived 20 minutes early into Charlotte, and their connection to Raleigh was delayed by two hours. They were looking at over 4 hours in Charlotte, but an earlier flight to Raleigh had seats available.
They asked at the gate about waitlisting for the earlier flight, and were told no – they had to use the app. The app wouldn’t allow it.
- Presumably the problem is that this was an international itinerary, and American Airlines doesn’t actually permit standby.
- Historically there would have been no issue standing by at the gate for a domestic flight as part of a larger international itinerary.
- The app wouldn’t allow it – only permitting same day changes to later flights than this one.
American Airlines Gate in Charlotte
The gate agent tells the customer that “non-status members can never standby at all” which isn’t true. The flight went out “with 18 seats available,” he couldn’t gotten where he was going as-planned but instead was stuck on an an hours-delayed flight instead for no good reason.
Standby Policies Have Been Broken For Years
Even if the tools worked, American’s standby policies themselves have been broken ever since US Airways management took over. They’re far less generous than Delta and American allowing customers to use their network to get where they’re going.
For instance, in addition to not being able to seek an agent’s help to get on a different flight, passengers still have to follow their original routing. There may be plenty of space to get home through another hub, but outside of irregular operations, they can’t use it. Travel to or from a city with only one flight to the hub you’re ticketed through? You cannot standby or use same day confirmed change at all.
That undermines the entire value to the customer in having the largest domestic network and all those hubs.
American Airlines Passengers Now Have To Use Tools That Do Not Work
American Airlines is not providing the tech tools to allow for self-service, and telling customers their only option is self-service. Gate agents can no longer do what they used to do for customers. That wastes passenger time, keeps them from getting home early and even on-time – suffering through delays unnecessarily – and keeps American from running an efficient operation moving passengers along and freeing up seats to get other people where they’re going or even seats to sell.
This is a self-own by AA. Allowing standby is a win-win: pax has a chance to arrive earlier, airline has an opportunity to clear some seat inventory and — not incidentally — keep a customer happy.
This happened to me 3 weeks ago: PHL-CLT-MOB, with a long (3+ hr) CLT layover. I arrived very early in PHL and attempted standby, to catch an earlier CLT-MOB flight. Gate agent was clueless and sent me to customer service, which informed me that my fare didn’t “qualify”. So I waited 2+ hr in PHL for my original flight, sat in CLT for several hours, and was shoe-horned onto a full CLT-MOB flight. Lose-lose.
Yep, this happened to me. Landed in Miami. We had a connecting flight to Charlotte and then SFO. Noticed the Charlotte flights were all delayed and they were even asking for volunteers for our flight. So we rushed over to the nonstop SFO flight where they had plenty of seats available. We told them that our flight was asking for volunteers and there were multiple delays on all of the Charlotte flights so could they put us on SFO. They said no because we didn’t have status. Our Charlotte flight ended up hours delayed, waiting for hours on the tarmac, crew time out then back to the gate where we waited for another hour plus for a jet bridge before we finally got off the plane at 1 AM and they then canceled the flight completely. We didn’t go out until 5 PM, ironically on that same non stop SFO flight we tried to get on the day before. All of that hassle and headache could’ve been solved if they had let us on the SFO flight which had seats. This is why I fly United
Completely agree with you. Exec Plat for nearly 10 years. Traveling for business, sometimes I end early and want to get home early to tuck my kids into bed or hug my wife. No longer can I do a same-day change through a different city (eg LGA-ORD-DEN instead of LGA-DFW-DEN) if it means getting home sooner. Why remove this option? Silly and does NOT build goodwill with customers, especially those of us who do not live in AA hubs and choose to be loyal — we (and our families) pay the price. I’m choosing UA more often now for my return trips home. They’re non stop and I have far more flexibility. Thanks for nothing AA.
“Can’t standby on the flight you need”
Of it’s the flight you need, why wouldn’t you have booked that flight in the first place?
Obviously the people responsible for these rules at American have not spent much time working as a customer service / gate agent at an airport. There opportunity cost by not helping advance passengers onto their destination when presented with the opportunity. Keeping people waiting around for a later flight often means dealing with compounding issues, especially when irregular operations pop up.
When I was a gate agent if a passenger arrived early and a seat was available, they were offered a seat and off they went.
Just one more problem with AA. I feel vindicated that I avoid flying on AA if at all possible. Corporate AA is not interested in customer service. They are only interested in certain corporate stats, and in maximizing profits.
I have little respect for the USAir management that have been screwing up American for years but this is truly epic stupidity. Get people to their destination early; they’ll thank you for it and you have one less potential problem for later.
Likely another winning idea from Raja?
The standby policy should have as few rules as possible. Every seat that goes out empty is a fail for the airline. Common sense says to utilize all available channels to fill seats. After safety protocols, what higher priority does an airline have then to fill seats?
I’d be willing to bet that Isom will walk back some of this short sighted policy very soon.
Standby use to cost 75.00 pre pandemic and very few folks chose that option. The Pandemic made it very easy to Standby even with Basic Economy Fares, which other airlines don’t let you switch from.
American is concentrating on profit. They believe they do not get any money out of customer service. You will have many articles to write about it weeks to come. The agents have also been advised you cannot reroute passengers onto other airlines. American is solely concentrating on numbers again. No interaction with their work forces. There is no personal touch. That’s the future they will also convey to their passengers. “People prefer to use self-service and our apps”.
I always credit my American flights to Alaska. If I want to stand by, can I go into the AA app the day of travel and swap to my AAdvantage number? Sounds like a pain.
This just happened to me last week. LAS-PHX-SBA on American.
Original itinerary: ~2.5 hour layover in Phoenix.
LAS-PHX gets in early, and an earlier PHX-SBA is delayed. I get to the earlier flight’s gate with 25 minutes to spare. There are 30 open seats on that flight. They won’t do it. The gate agent and two managers. All would not do it. They told me I should have booked that itinerary. Which I couldn’t even book because that PHX-SBA was scheduled to leave before my LAS-PHX arrived.
30 open seats. 3 hours spent in PHX with open seats on a delayed earlier flight with me standing at the gate. So maddening. Literal lunacy over common sense.
Slaves to the corporate computer. I cannot believe this policy exists. I can’t believe it. AA leadership has lost its brain cells.
To me, at least, it’s easy to see why this is happening. This is what the customer gets when the airline management and the union hostility towards the management gets into a peeing contest. Neither side wins and the people that pay the bills (referred to as CUSTOMERS) are the ones suffering. Although United has unions, their two sides are no where near as combative as American’s situation. Delta, being non-union, has the best relations with their team, pays them competitive wages, doles out generous profit sharing (10.4% on Valentine’s Day), little monthly incentives, across the board pay raises and has a solid customer base willing to pay a bit more for better service and ATTITUDE. The unions would love to screw up Delta like they have other airlines. Unions are like herpes…once you get it, you can’t get rid of it! Why American’s board of directors doesn’t seek better management, flush the toilet of the current team is…well…THEIR FAULT…and THE CUSTOMER (aforementioned) suffers. What part of the word “DUH!” don’t they get at American?
This policy comes from the Vasu Raja play book will it get revisited now that he is gone? Let’s see if Isom fixes this
I wonder if Raja can fly standby as a former AA employee; perhaps he doesn’t “have status” and will be denied boarding by the rules of his own absurd policy.
Hope springs eternal…
They should paint “ burning customer goodwill” on the tail.
Doug’s legacy is burning the airline to the ground.
Good. It’s not AA’a fault all of you are cheap are book the cheapest flight just to standby on the one you actually wanted. Book the flight you wanted and as the articles says “need”. No one to blame but yourself.
As I said the other day, they’re re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic…
The reality is that customers are a problem for most airlines. What will they want customers to be is cargo that happens to board itself. The idea they want to provide any services to customers is laughable. As long as the C suite are getting their millions, they don’t care. And even if the airline goes bankrupt, why they still all get paid. Even if they are fired, they still get paid.
Us peons should shut up and suffer. The people in charge simply do not care about their customers at all. I am frankly startled they don’t comb social media with AI to ban customers.
Yes. All of this.
This is why this EP has decided to jump ship and join BA and their program via the status match offer.
I have today recieved my approval for my Chase BA CC, and look forward to purchasing and taking one J flight to qualify for BA Gold, which is OneWorld Emerald.
* Gone is hoping to get a remarkably overvalued upgrade.
* Gone is expecting better but getting far less.
* Gone is the overpriced Citi Exec CC for AAdmiral Club access.
Now via OneWorld, I will still have access to most I had, and even more access in other areas.
I’ll likely keep some status w/ AA as burn 250,000 miles, but I’m no longer chasing the DFW based brass ring.
AA may still be good for Concierge Key, but that’s about it. EP used to be something but no longer.
I wish all you “guys” would stop bashing American Airlines. If you don”t like the rules or service fly the another airline. American Airlines will get the message and make changes.
For an airline that likes to think their network is the product they sure are dumb by not letting their best customers utilize it.
I was flying from Brisbane to Sydney and had a middle seat (they switched a 737 to 330 back to a 737 that caused me to lose my aisle seat). I was one the train to the airport early. Their app, I’m not in the FF program, asked me if I’d like an earlier flight. I took it and hot an aisle seat. Win-win.
Aa is a low quality carrier competing against Frontier and Spirit. Why do you expect anything better?
Fly Delta if these things are important to you. But please stop complaining, it’s getting tiresome.
@Just an Agent “American is concentrating on profit. ”
And yet they earn less profit than their peers
“Of it’s the flight you need, why wouldn’t you have booked that flight in the first place?”
Irregular operations?
Who is the moron that came up with Airport Excellence Advisory ? People like that need to be removed from their job.
Said it right on the head. AA is run by US Airways former management. We know how that service was. AND, the big dogs made millions and left. As today, never shared any profits with lower tier workers. AA has yet to find out just what a labor union is capable of doing! It’s better to work with your employees than to intimidate them.
American Airlines is about the same as riding a City Bus.
After reading most of these negative comments and having been a gate agent for many years there is just a lot more than running up to a gate a few minutes before departure and hoping to jump on an earlier flight. One item often overlooked is the bag issue. If you have checked a bag or bags it is not likely your bag/bags will make it on the flight with you, resulting in a delayed bag claim and the accompanying baggage delivery expense and frustration. We historically were never supposed to put a pax with bags on an earlier flight for this reason. Inconsistency in application in the past has always been an issue as agents worked outside the box and did what they wanted, often times contrary to policy. Very frustrating for those of us trying to follow the rules. You might say it has been consistently inconsistent. Hopefully, after some growing paints, the new process will be will bring conformity and a better experience for everyone. Change is hard!
Huh? On a city bus, you just get on the next one, and go to your destination. You don’t get told that you have to stand around a hub infecting everyone with your negativity.
Seriously, I read these stories and I wonder why anybody willingly flies with these guys. I know US airlines love nickel-and-diming passengers, but I’m impressed when it reaches this level, combining an artificial inflexibility with a dismal on-time record. Execs should be required to spend a day airside, just to see how disgruntled passengers and staff can make everyone miserable. They’re incurring a huge cost here, one that’s difficult to measure, but is nevertheless very real.
I’ve been driving hours out of my way to avoid flying American, and I’m quite happy with my international travel experience, thank you.
The analytic bean counters who now run airlines seem to go out of their way to make flying an utterly miserable endeavor, about as pleasant as having a colonoscopy or a tax audit. The only advantage to flying is that when the wheels are finally up off the ground…after you’ve gone through the ordeal of leaving your home about 3 -4 hours earlier to deal with airport traffic to pay a small ransom to park-or take some sort or ground transportation-then dealing with check-in lines to fork over $30 to check a piece of luggage-then the wait and humiliation at TSA checkpoints- then forking over another exorbitant amount for a sandwich and beverage because you know you won’t receive any food onboard, then being herded like cattle to be packed in like a sardine in a small uncomfortable seat…you can get to your destination airport rather quickly, where hopefully your aircraft has an available gate, spend another .10-15 minutes exiting the A/C and another .20 waiting for your luggage, assuming it doesn’t get damaged or even makes the flight.
Eff AA. I’ll fly the competition.
AA comes up with all these grand ideas and changes, and while some may be good, their execution is horrendous. Being able to process your own standby or flight change request online is amazing, but it shouldn’t be the only way and there shouldn’t be any restrictions on who qualifies unless a bag has already been checked. On top of that it would be nice if their product actually worked.
Just like their new way of forcing customers to use a kiosk at check-in at the airport. It shouldn’t be forced and their kiosks should actually work efficiently and properly. Imagine waiting 15 minutes in line to use a kiosk, spending another 5 minutes going through the questions only for it not to work for many different reasons such as not being able to read a credit card or passport. Then get sent to another line, wait another 15 minutes to get checked in by a human whose able to do it smoothly within a couple minutes.
If you are one of the lucky ones who the kiosk works correctly for, after waiting in line for 15 minutes, spending another 5 minutes using the kiosk, you then get to wait in another line for 5 to 10 minutes to get your bag tag scanned. Make sure you put the tag on too, or you’ll get scolded like a 5 year old by employees. What a long drawn out disaster and way to frustrate customers before travel even begins.
Next up is scanning a QR code to make a baggage claim. Don’t expect to talk with a human. While this may be a great idea, it should only be an option and not forced. I also highly doubt it’s going to properly work.
Everything is complicated, confusing, frustrating, inefficient, and nonsensical. Yet if you complain, it’s not their fault. You should have arrived at the airport 5 hours early to play musical chairs at check-in. You should know your meeting is going to end early and book accordingly because, for no good reason, their system won’t allow you to go standby. It’s like being stuck in a bad relationship you can’t wait to get out of. They’re going to continue to lose business unless they make any attempt to be customer friendly. Happy flying.
This just wreaks of MBA going on a min/max power trip. Sure, quarterly numbers may be good for the next 2 or 3 shareholder reports, but at the expense of company longevity. And isn’t AA still intentionally understaffing their FAs and asking them to do more for less money? I’m a pax and I feel horrible for them too.
“Of it’s the flight you need, why wouldn’t you have booked that flight in the first place?”
Urr, it wasn’t available? As it happened, the PHL-CLT-MOB itinerary cost me $160 — advance purchase. Availability overall for this Sunday routing was sparse.
It makes no sense for airline to penalize pax for blocking standby since the act _frees_ a seat on the later flight, which the airline can then sell. The late CLT-MOB flight, which I was forced to take, was bursting at the seams. It was in fact going in-and-out of availability for the previous few days. If nothing else, their denial of my standby likely left money on the table.
This happened to me. I was in revenue first + EP and I was told I missed the chance to change to earlier flight because I needed to have entered in the app. Now I know.
Second thought: yes, this is a complete cheapening of the product and I recognize the lower staff, but I would absolutely make this change if I was AA. Customer be damned – they can cut labor costs. And labor costs must be squeezed to succeed. The best way to cut costs is to reduce the number of bodies you need to keep around. I think this was a smart move by AA, even if again it makes the airline worse.
If the airline allows a passenger to standby for an earlier flight, and the passenger gets put on that flight, the airline gets that seat back on the later flight, which it may need.
So the airline benefits by having a standby-for-an-earlier-flight policy.
Apparently the AA bean counters don’t understand that.
They understand.
Every Customer Experience consultant has communicated the importance of a “Frictionless Experience”. In air travel, even more so.
But money talks. Making it, and keeping it. And quarterly results are the product that AA cares about.
That is why AA has so many operational customer-relationship-destroying roadblocks.
Executives got to get paid.
I am probably wrong but it appears AA is headed down the road of a ULCC. That said passengers on Sprit & Frontier are the ones Greyhound will not take. When is the last time you heard of a fight on a Greyhound bus ???
US Airways had a MUCH friendlier policy and always was helpful, in my many years as an elite with them (and even without status before that).
American got me yesterday in Midland. The app did let me waitlist for multiple earlier flights after my flight (last one of the night) posted a 3 hour delay to DFW. One of the earlier ones I was waitlisted on canceled. After that, I got a notification that my reservation had been changed and the other waitlisted flight now showed confirmed in my record (it was delayed until my original scheduled time anyway). It even let me select a seat in First. Original flight disappeared. But, it wouldn’t let me check in. No option at all. I did get through on the phone and was told airport agent would have to check me in.
I stood in line two and a half hours. As a Oneworld Emerald. Then the plane I was to be on landed and arrived. In that 2.5 hours, the agents helped maybe a dozen people. Plane arrived, they ignored the line at the gate and started working the flight. I went up to the gate reader: “Oh, you aren’t checked in and it’s too late.” They were going to leave me after waiting 2.5 hours in line, at their direction, and the flight ended up leaving with about 25 open seats. I wasn’t the only elite in the same boat. I wouldn’t budge from the gate reader until the agent checked me in. Conversation in First on the hop over to Dallas centered around if AA is this horrible to its top frequent flyers then it must be absolutely abhorrent without status.
Oops, misspelled Spirit !!!
Pre-merger US was more restrictive than AA in my opinion (no standby, could “moveup” to earlier flight within a certain window) but it was never same routing, just same number of stops. While unfriendly, I could understand that more from RM, people buying a cheaper connecting itinerary and then changing to a non-stop. So how this policy transformed into same stops AND same routing I’ll never understand.
Maybe the union should buy AA.
There is one possible justification for making SDS more difficult, and that to prevent people from booking a cheap ticket, arriving earlier, and getting on a plane which had a higher fare at time of booking. For example, a basic economy redeye flyer shows up for a 3PM departure that arrives the same day. That 3PM flight was likely several hundred more expensive at time of booking. But, a simpler rule to avoid this is to prohibit basic economy passengers from using SDS if their fare class isn’t available (or never was available) on the flight they want to change to.
AA has been on a steady plummet since AA’s acquisition by US Airways, and leadership of US Airways control of American Airlines. Further, AA has proven – – time and time again – – that their passengers are nothing but a nuisance to AA, and replaceable commodities. Anything that AA says to the contrary, is window dressing.
It is clear that through AA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement with their pilots, that AA has demonstrated a significantly greater commitment to their pilots, than to the people who generate the revenue necessary to pay the pilot’s salaries. AA pilots have far superior access to seats on AA aircraft, than do AA passengers (even when the pilots are NOT shuttling for business purposes/flight duties).
In my opinion, AA has been rendered unrecognizable by US Airways leadership. After a lifetime of elite AAdvantage status – – since the inception of AA AAdvantage – – i, and my family, have defected to Delta, where we are treated like human beings, not bots/customers, assuming the role of AA staff.
It is a shame that we had to defect to Delta, as we think highly of many AA rank and file personnel. But AA’s leadership, culture, policies, and systems have destroyed AA, and rendered AA unrecognizable.
This is 100% a cost cutting measure that is designed to reduce customer contact with agents. The efforts to push passengers to use self service is going to be ramped up even further in the very near future. And it will get worse.
Keeping in mind the AA agents just got their union contract ratified, it is clear the only reason they are still keeping them around is to use them to push these new policies and procedures on the passengers to help ease the transition to the day they get rid of actual agents altogether.
What’s more is the airline has stated multiple times that these changes will allow those customers who cannot use self-service options a more meaningful interaction with the agents as the agent will have more time to help those people. But if they are preventing those same people from using an agent to get the service they want, they cannot have that interaction at all. And the less familiar someone is with flying, the more likely they are to need the assistant of an agent. So these people are not Keys or Platinum anything.
What’s sad is that most agents at AA are inclined to push these options as it means less work for them, but don’t seem to have the foresight to see it’s ultimately going to be them who lose their jobs to cellphones and kiosks.
As someone commented before it’s a smart business move as far as cutting costs. But what are the costs of this choice as time goes on? Is AA trying to see how bad they can be, and still be in business? We can be sure customer service will become not just worse, but nonexistent.
Unless passengers complain to the airline, and the best place to do this is on social media, then they will walk all over us passengers and proceed to keep making these changes that benefit only the stockholders and top brass. Perhaps the writing is already on the wall, but we shouldn’t go down without a fight.
As far as the job of the gate agents, it is true that there are a lot of moving parts and especially with checked baggage it becomes even more of a time issue. We all think we should be helped but we don’t think about the fact the agent does have a lot of tasks to accomplish and cannot be expected to ensure someone goes to find the bag and reroute it. The baggage handlers who do this, have to locate the bag, likely in transit from one flight to another or to a holding area, print a new tag and get it on the bag, and get that bag onto the passengers new flight. At a hub this is near impossible to accomplish in less than an hour. Not to mention the agent who is expected to reroute your bag is also usually working a flight and has a lot of folks they need to help. And its not one passenger with one bag, it’s many. The time frames make sense to me. The rest is all just another way to make money for those who already have far too much at the cost of those who suffer to make it happen.
Charging for luggage has resulted in passengers having to check bags at the gate. Less time for the agent to have “meaningful interactions”. Charging for seat assignments results in families not being able to find seating together at the time of booking, resulting in agents having to try and get this resolved, often having to move other passengers. And if the passengers they have to move payed for their seats, now it becomes even more complicated. So yet another fee that results in needing agents to spend time fixing things because of the choices made by AA. Not that anyone expects any of these fees will be going away, but don’t pretend this is to benefit customers when it will do nothing but inconvenience them. As the honorable Judge Judith Sheinland would say “Don’t pee on my leg and tell me its raining.”
While I understand the new policy is arduous, and yes has issues with the technology, you, Gary, could get in some serious trouble for posting an INTERNAL USE ONLY MEMO. Whoever sent you that could ALSO get in trouble for sending you that as it is company internal only material. You could’ve just posted what American themselves published.
In regards to the agents not knowing how to handle it, yeah, it’s an issue. Lack of training on it or the more probable reason of blowing through the training material on it would cause that. To everyone experiencing that, I’m sorry. However from the airline perspective part of the issue occuring and part of why the rule was implemented is because it’s hurting revenue customers from being able to get home who genuinely need to get on an earlier flight for whatever reason, Weather, current flight on maintenance etc. versus someone who could’ve booked the earlier flight originally, chose not to, and now wants to. It’s gotten so bad it’s screwing up YOUR flight crews from being able to get to the bases to fly home. And then you wonder why your flight is delayed again. It’s not a perfect solution and I’m sure there’s going to be amendments. But before you go trashing the airline, make sure to not post company memos while you’re at it too
AA should simply go back to charging a fee for the convenience. . Obviously an exception would be made for top-tier customers. I believe United and Delta still charge.
My last attempt at standby for an earlier flight were 6 months ago. Both times at the gate. I always flash my Platinum Pro Card and must have gotten helpful people.
One flight was empty in F on a holiday and I wasn’t put back on the upgrade list but I was just glad to get home 5 hrs earlier. Once in DFW once in CLT.
I always double check any changes via app and unless I’m 100% sure I’m getting what I want I speak to an agent at the airport.
Other times I just show up at the airport super early and use Priority checkin to get put on standby for an earlier flight.