Originally Posted by
lrdpenn
I believe this is only in the old-fashioned case of DSR (and good luck to anyone trying to get an agent to process that anymore) - which is applied for involuntary downgrades of F passengers which have a confirmed seat in Y on the flight, due to oversale, seat issue, IROPS(?), and a decade ago an anytime/milesaaver J ticket but confirmed in Y. This is not for a voluntary standby of an F passenger on another flight.
Yup I think this is a good and accurate description.
Also, I believe there is an auto processor that runs at T-40 which clears upgrades then clears standbys. In an ideal world, they would clear standbys (to fill any open seats in Y) then upgrades (with the people who cleared standbys added to the upgrade list) then standbys again (in case there are more people on standby who couldn’t be cleared because Y was full until upgrades were processed). But in reality they just clear the upgrade list first (to free up as many seats in Y) and then as many standbys to fill the rest of the plane.
The processing of the upgrade list then standby usually works to customers advantage (except those who paid for J and voluntarily standby for an earlier flight) because of all the nonrevs who can clear into highest available cabin. If they cleared standby first without excluding nonrevs then the nonrevs would get priority for premium cabins before upgrades which isn’t supposed to happen.
small trick is sometimes when they put you on the standby list there is still SDC available. In those instances you should SDC on the flight to get a confirmed seat in Y and then they can add you to the standby list. If you SDC onto a flight there is some amount of time it is suggested to wait if you can before checking in so that the checkin process can automatically add you to the upgrade waitlist. If you check in too quickly, the automatic upgrade waitlist request fails and you can only get added at the airport