Originally Posted by
acarney
I don't have status, which maybe that makes the SDC a non-issue.... is that even available to people without status?
SDCs are available to everyone. They are $50, except that several short "shuttle" routes are $25. The fee is waived of you have gold or higher.
The advantage here is that if the flight that you want (last flight in your case) is much more expensive than the cheapest flight is the day, you can save money by buying the cheap one and SDCing to the one you want. Note that SDC is available when you can check in for your scheduled flight. So if you buy a 6am flight, you can check in and SDC to an 11pm flight at 6am the previous day. All that you need is for that 11pm flight to have at least one seat for sale in the same cabin that you purchased. At T-41hr, this is quite likely for most routes on most days.
Also, this being a ~45 minute Q400 flight, there are no middle seats.... so even if the last row doesn't recline, 45 minutes isn't too long and it would be a window or aisle.
Sure, that's different. If there are no middle seats it's less important.
But note that non-savers can eventually select any seat (even one that they would have had to pay for, or required elite status for, earlier). Non-saver elites will move into premium seats when their upgrade windows open. The seat map will look very different by the time you get assigned a seat.
On this flight it sounds like it doesn't really matter where you sit though. I wouldn't risk this on a 737 or Airbus.
I'm actually surprised that AS will assign you a seat at T-24. They should really do it at the gate, once all the main fares have gotten the better seats.