I'm in and out of Philly a LOT. Something very strange started happening about I would guess 2-3 months ago.

My normal procedure was to get through security and sit in the United Red Carpet Club (yeah it's an AWFUL lounge but it's the only choice for me there), then a half hour before flight, I would pack up and hit D-8 for my Continental flight. One time I think in January, I did this, got to the gate 25 mins before departure (normally when they start the boarding) and the plane was already full and they had been paging me!

The flight left like 10 mins early!

So I don't know what is going on in that airport but now all the flights are loading up early.

I know if you have status you can generally bully your way through the system. The easiest way to do this is to offer them two options - either let you do what you need to do - or offer them so much paperwork and wasted time with annoying questions and repeated renegotiations over the next flight, that the natural human reaction to be lazy kicks in. And if they still don't let you on the flight, make them suffer in paperwork hell over it.

After they have you just about totally rebooked, fake a phone call and pretend that you have to change the flights again. Really dig into them subtly. If you have no status, play really dumb. This is an easy option. If you have status, start quoting rules and make them look them up until they get headaches. And at the end of it all, just wink and say "You do know that this would have been much easier if you would have just let me on my flight."

I really think there is a PhD thesis to be written on whether the smarter people opt for the work or the boarding pass, and likewise for the dumber.