Is it really complete misinformation? I had a case last year where I was flying BOS->DFW connecting through ORD and tried to standby for a direct flight (which had plenty of availability). The standby request could not be accepted by the AC AAngel's computer since the two legs of the trips had different fare classes and therefore had been ticketed (by aa.com) as two separate tickets. Customer service explained to me that a trip with multiple fare classes will always result in multiple tickets being issued (transparently), which appears to be what the TB poster is seeing.