Um, no. My point in the last sentence was simply to point out that should your bag go missing while on space available travel AA is not going to reimburse you for incidental expenses.

What I'm saying is that the perceived cost savings from "free" buddy passes is just an illusion when you add in the cost of waiting standby, possibly having to make multiple trips to the airport on multiple days or worse, purchase a hotel room, rental car, return one way ticket, etc.

As I said, with a 1 connection routing the round trip cost of D3 buddy pass is quite high. The employee could be charged nearly as much as a paid ticket would be for a cross border itinerary such as this; nothing free about it. Even if a purchased ticket were double the amount it would still be cheaper in my eyes. D3 travel is the pits.