CJKatl

If you SDC, you can get placed on the UG list. If you SDS, you ordinarily would not clear until after all UGs have been given, nor do you appear on anything but the SDS list. I spent all yesterday on SDS lists (four IAH-ATL flights that went out full), and only appeared on the SDS list, not the UG list. Only pax with confirmed seats appear on the UG list. For the last flight of the day, where I did have a confirmed seat, I was on and cleared the UG list.

I do SDC or SDS at least two or three times a week, as my MO is to purchase a ticket on the last flight of the day and head to the airport when I'm done, hoping to get an earlier flight. This week alone, I did this for five different flights. (RDU-ATL on Tue, did get SDC UG; ATL-MEM on Wed, see below; MEM-ATL on Thu, did not get UG on SDC; ATL-IAH on Thu, different PNR, did get UG on SDC; HOU-ATL, did SDC to later flight, got UG, but tried to SB for several earlier flights)

But...

This past Wednesday, I did get the seldom seen SDS UG on an early morning ATL-MEM flight! After clearing security early, I saw another flight to my destination was presently boarding in T. Everyone's BPs had been scanned, but people were still lined up in the Jetway waiting to get on the plane. My expectation was a middle seat in the back, if anything, but the GA put me in the last open F seat instead, without my asking. It must have just been the cut-off time and someone who was supposed to have been in F must have not shown. I was the last pax to board the plane. (And GA R***** H*** was the recipient of my last JWD cert.)

As someone who does much SDC and SDS, this might have been the second time in the past couple years I've cleared into F. It's definitely a rare exception.