This is my experience of SDS as an EXP. Last Thursday, I had an itinerary ORD->PHL->LGA that left 5am @ ORD. The connection @ PHL left me with about 40 minutes to connect from A to F in PHL (the intinerary stated that I would have an hour). Realizing that this is cutting close, I decided to wait for the next direct flight as I had some time to kill.
So, I took this as an opportunity to stop by and visit some colleagues in town. Realizing that there are two other direct flight @ 3:50 & 6:30, I checked for availability and there wasn't enough availability for SDFC so I asked one of the angel @ Admiral Club to just put me on 3:50pm standby (there were 3 available seats with me as
#1 on the standby list). She printed the standby voucher and I stopped by the new Centurion Lounge before I left the airport. Came back around 2:50pm and found out that terminal F does not have TSA Pre and waited almost 25 minutes before clearing the TSA. Ran to the gate and waited until everyone boarded and got a seat.
Couple of observation points:
in my AA Apps, I noticed that when I did not get on 8:50am flight to LGA, that segment disappeared from my itinerary. My guess is that when I did a no-show @ 8:50am, they took me off the flight. After I got home, I noticed that appropriate mileage were credit to my account for PHL->LGA segment.
This was a gamble since I potentially could not have a seat if there were circumstances that open seats were taken during the day. Ideally, if I can SDFC, I would feel a bit comfortable, but due to # of seat availability, it was not an option.
Don't go through terminal F @ PHL, but instead through C as there is a TSA-Pre and then take the shuttle to F (probably faster).
In retrospect, I should have take my time and show up @ my gate for 850am flight late and tell them that I missed my connection flight. I think under that circumstance, they would have confirmed my 3:50pm flight.
l8r
-doc