Originally Posted by gary_nj

I am sure that this topic must be discussed someplace in this forum, but I have spent a lot of time searching and can't find it. Apologies if this is in some obvious thread that I can't find right now.

I am booking a saver award ticket from EWR-IAH. The website will give me some creative routes through non-hub cities, using "last flight of the night"/"first flight of the morning" connections. So I can book EWR-XXX-IAH where EWR-XXX departs in the evening, is followed by a six-hour overnight connection in XXX, and then XXX-IAH is the first flight in the morning.

If I happen to want to visit XXX, would it be possible to standby for EWR-XXX earier on the same day of departure? Or would the SDC algorithm perhaps already see the connection as being >4 hours and offer me a SDC choice to the connecting city?

Thanks in advance for any insight on this, as well as any pointers to where this has already been discussed .