Originally Posted by
jrhone
I have heard from people at the check in counter that they called in to the help desk right at the 100/72/24 hr mark to list and found out that they still weren’t close to the top of the list. One of the reasons that this might happen is that you can actually put your request in when making the reservation up to 330 days out. Sabre will store the UPG request and automatically try to upgrade you at the threshold time. Sabre stores the requests in the order they are received so if you made a reservation 300 days out and requested the UPG, you will be in front of the person who made their reservation at 200 days out. Remember, the system runs on its own time, so your watch may not match "sabre time”.
Before the airport takes control of the flight, this is correct. However, once the airport takes control (usually at 4 hours) the standby lists are driven by [B]check-in[B] time within each category. This is true for upgrades, non-revs etc. The airport standby list is a different list than the 100/72/24 list mentioned above and you must activate yourself onto the list. It is not automatic. The airport standby list is sorted by check-in time (from aa.com for example) within each category..