There was a time long long ago in a galaxy far far away when an employee at either UA or CO with some basic business acumen, using their best judgment, might look at a situation like this in real-time and think:

*The IAH-SJC flight is relatively tight
*The IAH-SFO flights are relatively open
*SJC and SFO are co-terminals
*So why not get you moving sooner and kill two birds with one stone!

But these days most flights are packed, and the front line employees are less likely to exercise any common sense latitude.

That said - it never hurts to ask when you arrive at IAH, and it might be worth a reasonable SDC type of fee. Not having the added complication of checked bags floating somewhere in the system is always a plus, so my advice would be not to re-check your bags to SJC before talking to an agent about your proposed rebook.


SunLover