Flight Delayed? Standby Secrets to Ensure You’re Never Stuck [Roundup]

by Gary Leff

News and notes from around the interweb:

  • Flying standby can save you from a delay. Here’s how to do it. (WaPo)

    During major airline events, the airline may not have any seats for you – for days . At peak travel times, other airlines may not either. And airlines, well American Airlines really, makes it harder than ever to standby for an earlier flight. (European airlines frequently won’t allow it at all.) Status helps, but there’s no substitute for booking a backup flight on a second airline and cancelling once it’s clear you won’t need it (best to do this with miles if possible, where there’s free cancel and redeposit).

  • Meanwhile, I can’t remember the last time I got a predeparture beverage from flight attendants on American Airlines. Asiana Airlines cabin crew are out gate side with full service choreography:

  • Hotels keep trying to find new ways to get you to forego daily housekeeping. MGM offers ‘Make A Gross Choice’:

  • 30% off Southwest Airlines Hawaii, Mexico, Caribbean, And Central America flights using promo code BEACHES when you book by August 28th for travel September 29 – February 10, 2025. Blackout dates apply. It’s worth repricing any existing itineraries.

    Southwest has to drive traffic to its website, since it largely sells tickets directly rather than through third parties. So they’re frequently going to run sales.

  • Marriott 2000 bonus points per 2+ night stay plus 2,000 points per 2+ night stay at MGM Collection hotels, September 10 – November 26, 2024 (registration required).

  • Hyatt cardholders earn 1,000 bonus points per night at Unbound Collection hotels September 1 – November 30, 2024 (registration required)

  • With American Airlines moving out the return of scheduled Tel Aviv service to the end of March, they will not rebook passengers onto other airlines (not even BA). UPDATE: American Airlines says that this summary notwithstanding, they are in fact re-boooking on to joint venture partners.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. “ Meanwhile, I can’t remember the last time I got a predeparture beverage from flight attendants on American Airlines”

    I’m sitting on an AA flight right this minute waiting during boarding and was just offered one.
    Happened on last flight too. So, it’s not impossible and actually more frequent than you would lead people to believe.

  2. I’ve also received PDBs on most of my AA flights this year; it’s rarer not to receive one.

  3. Asiana is a good airline and the flight attendants are nice. I haven’t seen that show in person but it would be great to see it.

  4. “ there’s no substitute for booking a backup flight on a second airline and cancelling once it’s clear you won’t need it”

    The fact that tons of people are doing this is the precise reason that there are no seats available on later flights.

    It probably also leads to higher fares as the airlines are likely seeing this as actual demand.

    As more people take up this practice, things are gonna get even more screwed up.

  5. About 95% of my AA FC / Flagship flights I’ve recieved a pre-departure deverage the past two years. Only late departures or when the weather was bad and we were trying to get out through a “weather window” did I not get service. Guess AA know exactly who you are so choices to ignore you :).

  6. I flew two legs on AA yesterday.

    First one, no PBD….not even a snack. It was a 2.5 hour flight that left at 640am.

    Second leg….got the best service! PBD, nice meal, attentive…all with a gracious smile.

  7. … If you watch the video full screen and cross your eyes, you have 7 flight attendants dancing in unison.

    Kinda fun.

    (Note: this is day 5 of a status run, texted from the Qiantas lounge in LAX. Your results may vary.)

  8. “ Meanwhile, I can’t remember the last time I got a predeparture beverage from flight attendants on American Airlines”

    My last 8 FC flights all provided PDD, even a LGU to BOS that had a delay due to missing crew.

    Must be an Texas Thing

Comments are closed.