Originally Posted by SuperG1955

As an example, we have seats on CO816 EWR-MSY tomorrow. It's the last flight of the day, and is almost guaranteed to be late which means that we don't get to our home until at least 1AM CDT. Our schedule for tomorrow opened up and we would like to go earlier but: The other 2 daily nonstops 716 and 516 are both Full (Coach & FC) so they aren't an option for standby. We could catch an earlier flight EWR-IAH and then IAH - EWR, where there are plenty of available midday seats on both segments but, as I've learned from experience, I'll get a really hard time and won't be successful because its a different route than we're ticketed and the seats, while open, probably aren't available in the same class. I wouldn't mind paying the $50 for a seat that's going to fly empty without me and that would open up a seat you might sell on a later non-stop. So instead of a win-win, we end up with a lose-lose situation.