I was booked on UA 4677 from SDF-CLE last night, connecting to UA4755 to DCA. The first flight was delayed from 5:17 p.m. to 5:55, so I was concerned about the connecting time and went to ask the agent my options.

I specifically asked when the flight was expected to arrive at CLE and she said 7:42. It didn't make sense to me that a 40 minute departure delay would lead to an hour + arrival delay, but I assumed they were just lying about how long the delay would be. At any rate, that would definitely mean my missing the connection.

I asked about rebooking on the nonstop on US. The agent said "we'd have to call them for that" and then insisted it was full without calling them.

She suggested rebooking from CLE-ORD-DCA, which would get into DCA at about 3 hours late. When I balked at that, she suggested CLE-PHL-DCA, which was just as bad.

I asked about anything from CLE-IAD. She said there was an 8:50 flight on that route. I asked to be protected on that. (Well, after I got her to understand that Washington Dulles is NOT the same as Dallas.) I figured that I could try to make my original connection and have a good fallback option.

And then she rebooked me on Delta via DTW. I'm not complaining in that I only got home a half hour late. But I am puzzled about a few things:

1) It turns out (via flightaware) that the flight actually departed at 5:48 arrived at CLE at 6:51, so I could easily have made the original connection. And, even if I hadn't, it looks like the CLE-IAD flight was pretty empty. So why wouldn't she just do what I'd asked and protect me on that flight?

2) Did she really see some inventory (or lack thereof) on the US flight or was she just not trying?

It was fairly clear that there was some SHARES incompetency going on, seeing as how the two gate agents kept going back and forth to one another on various rebookings, making suggestions on what to type (and calling someone else over at some point). But that doesn't seem an adequate answer.

And, yes, I plan to request ORC. (I also plan to not leave my cell phone on my desk at home next time, but that's another matter.)