On a recent short hop LAX/SFO, I logged in to check on my return, and saw oddities in my booking.

First, my reservation had an added outbound leg for the same flight on the day AFTER I actually flew out. Odd, but no harm done.

But also there was a second reservation for a different (earlier scheduled) return flight. I was only able to check in for one of the two returns.

When I got to the airport, they saw that extra booking, and said my original flight was 'on decision' and at least 2 hours delayed, so apparently someone added the safety reservation to the PNR but never called or anything.

The whole night (June 9) was a bit of an irrops circus at LAX, so I'm glad some mystery angel was looking after my PNR. I got home roughly on my original time, whereas my original booking didn't arrive until past 1am.

I suspect they were extra helpful because I did the buy-up at booking so it showed up as an A fare. My wait list priority (5 out of 42) seemed clearly based on the A and not my 1P status, so that was the best $75 spent in a while!

I the future, if I even suspect I'm flying into dicey weather, I'm all over the paid UG.