Originally Posted by
chris4096
It's actually worse than that. For "direct" (but not non-stop) flights that have the same flight number, it is treated as if the flight were non-stop..
It's in fact worse than worse than that. Several times I've intentionally booked ORD-PHX-XXX as two separate segments (same flight number) to avoid the nasty issue with through upgrades requiring the same FC seat assignment and thus rarely clearing when booked as a direct flight.
In all but one cases when the 'segments' posted to my account they posted as a single direct flight ORD-XXX rather than as two separate legs. Some smart IT programming on that one to say the least.