The system doesn't flag you differently on it's own, it is done by the agent who looks up your record. Voluntary standby is BP5B (and except for the exempt, you pay $50) which goes after, those impacted by things outside of their control, BP5A, which is free.

If we offload you from not boarding on our flight as a misconnect, it protects your ticket from being voided due to no show, if we offload you just because you didn't show, or were doing a hidden city, your ticket gets queued to cncl if appropriate actions aren't taken.

An automatic thing has way too many variables. A later flight delayed by 5 min...guy shows up 6 hours earlier for an earlier standby flight...should the computer see his flight is delayed, and waive the fee, even though the guy had no clue, and he showed up voluntarily so early, and 5 min isn't anything of significance? Such "fuzzy logic" decisions are better handled by human interaction.

Automation is nice, but it is also the cause of the problems. Lines get longer as machines can't do what needs to be done, but staffing has been cut to be replaced by a machine. Ez-update pages you 5 times in 10 min for slight 1 min changes, yet an agent knows to make an announcement once every 10-15 min, stating the status quo, and changes that have real impact. The outsourced call center is almost automation....lower labor costs, simple logic, little situational knowledge, yet we hate it, but automation, which does the same thing...well, it has it's places, but the future may make labor units like me obsolete. Then you need to support me via taxes for unemployment (keep rolling that expiration of benefits, prez....in time, I will want the multi-year plan!) and welfare.

The automation most likely WOULD have rebooked you, but the options were so limited (sold out for days) and given the distance and available ground transportation (automation doesn't know about that,) you most likely fell outside the parameters that the automation is told to react to. The one seat that 1 of you got rebooked on (I have spoken to the agent, the one you call the angel) most likely wasn't there when the automation ran (or the reservation had 2 people and it can't split a PNR, and most likely shouldn't) but appeared when someone either cncld, got rerouted, or was cleared onto one of the earlier flights.

The agent that met your flight was most likely busy turning that aircraft around to work the next flight. Go thru everyone's PNR and discuss the options with each person? That gate would have been out of service for hours. Some systems are there, they are evolving, they aren't perfect, will never be. Way too many variables, and a changing world. 10 years ago, ez rebook wasn't even much beyond a concept. Now, they have added modules to it that will cncl your later space if you get on an earlier flight...wasn't there for the 1st 6 years or so of the auto-rebooking robot. The robots still go thru the individual PNR's as one ca't do them en masses..the "protection" flights have finite availability, so it gives the "best available" based on used (WHQ) defined criteria.

Looks like many inbound flights were backed up, and they were landing en masse, with inaccurate ETAs. GIGO, and on an ATC day, accurate ETAs are few and far between with so many variables such as arrival rate, aircraft spacing, taxi times, traffic on the ouvercrowded ramp, gate availability, distance between gates, speed of passengers in the arport... The line was drawn somewhere, and you are the one we hear about...but there were over a dozen empty seats on that plane (the 1 with your brother) and each of them has a passenger who could say "why didn't they wait for me...it was 5 min", then the next group of people ask the same, it was 10 min...pretty soon we have a dozen people and it was 30 min. Sometimes one has to cut the losses and move on, to try to salvage the operation. Had they not, then the day would have been irregular all day long, with no opportunity to ever recover until overnight, instead of a mostly normal operation by the late afternoon.