Originally Posted by
Nevada1K
Since the roll out of their new CS2 software (where the standby list is now maintained electronically), it has been my experience that if you want to standby EARLIER on a discounted fare, they will run your credit card (but not process the up charge) at the time they add you to the standby list. The charge to your credit card is only processed if/when they clear you on the standby list and actually give you a boarding pass for the earlier flight. By getting your credit card/payment info when they add you to the standby list, it saves them valuable time when they are actually processing standbys and want to get the flight off the gate without taking a delay.
The above has been my observation on 2-3 occasions; one of the WN participants on this board can confirm whether or not this is now SOP.
Based on my experience yesterday at MDW, this is not a SPO. The only option I was given was to pay the fare difference to catch an earlier flight.
Disappointing thing about the fare difference, I was doing a transfer at MDW and they said my connection to STL had no value, thus I would have to pay full fare to catch the earlier flight to STL.