notouchy

At SEA this evening, headed to SFO and unsurprisingly every SFO flight is delayed due to fog. Asked to be put on the standby list for an earlier flight, gate agent refused stating that due to ATC delays they were not putting anyone on standby for any SFO flight and are making everyone stay on their originally ticked flight. Has anyone else had this experience? I am not too happy about this and feel it greatly diminishes G75K status.

halamadrid

You probably should've called instead of relying on the gate agent. I had a similar situation at SFO where the gate agent told me she couldn't even put me on the stand by list b/c it was full. I decided not to push the agent further and just called, and they not only put me on the list but got me an actual seat. The agent was not too happy when I came back to ask for my BP, but I got my seat on that earlier flight. Another thing I'd recommend is not telling the CS agent on the phone that the gate agent has already said no and that's why you're calling; approach it as if this is your first attempt at getting on the list. I'm not saying that this would've helped in your situation, but gate agents get bogged down when a lot of delays are coming down the line so they just shut everything down and start giving NOs left and right. Better to call someone that is away from the mess with more time and willingness to help.

tusphotog

I'm surprised they didn't reroute those flights to OAK or SJC.

beckoa

Was going to suggest calling or changing online/via the app. ^

I'd send a note to AS as this was not following policy. Did you have checked luggage? This can cause significant issues.

notouchy

formeraa

I would suggest filing acomplaint with AS Customer Service. Tell them the flight and the data -- they will be able to determine the GA who worked the flight.

halamadrid

I had another situation where I showed up to an earlier flight I was trying to get on as my flight to SFO was going to be delayed due to an ATC hold. I asked the agent to let me on and she flat out refused saying the flight was closed (door was still open and there was an agent at the door still waiting). I immediately called CS (got a representative in Seattle) and explained my situation. In a matter of 2 minutes he got me a seat on the flight (proof that it wasn't closed yet), but told me that I still had to convince the gate agents to give me the BP to get on. I went back to the gate agent and told her that I now had a seat. She again flat out refused saying she was closing the flight. I pleaded with her that this was the only way I could make my meeting (which was the truth), but she still refused. I will also add that I was never rude nor gave her an attitude (I really needed to get on and that's always counterproductive to getting any help). Long story short, as I'm pleading my case a passenger that was on the flight arrives with BP in hand to get on. It was clear at that point that they had been waiting for that passenger all along before closing the flight. At that point, the agent by the door who had been silent all along (so as to not go against his team member) finally told her to just print my BP and let me on along with that other late passenger (to save a bit of face as it was clear that they were letting the other passenger on). To be honest, I was so glad to get on the flight (I would've had to cancel my trip altogether) that I just thank the two agents and got on...but did a lot of smh once seated.

I will say that on balance, my experiences with gate agents have been mostly positive and they have been really helpful. Agents are people so they just have bad days like the rest of us.

PVDtoDEL

I've found pmVX agents really frustrating to deal with with a lot of these types of requests, with SFO being the location of most of my bad experiences..

In the past year, 8 out of 8 standby requests I made were turned down because the "standby list is full" (of nonrevs). In only 2 of these 8 times was I successful in convincing an agent to add me to the list after debating with them for 5-10 minutes. Once, my SFO-PDX flight was delayed 4 hours so I asked to be rebooked SFO-SEA so I could make it home at a reasonable time, and had to escalate twice to get to the supervisor on duty, who happily made the change for me. Twice, on paid F tickets, I tried to same day change onto an earlier flight to be told that I'd have to pay a change fee (as 75K) that they were not willing to waive without supervisor intervention.

I don't know if the VX agents were just really poorly trained in the policies and their system, or if they just never were told to prioritise requests of paying passengers, particularly those with status. Whatever it is, it was one of the biggest reasons I avoided flying VX pre-merger, and one of the biggest reasons I continue to avoid pmVX stations when I may need some flexibility in my plans (i.e. I expect that I may need to standby/SDC).

missamo80

I had a similar problem flying out of SFO earlier this year.

Buster CT1K

SFO gate agents regularly give false information and are not very helpful or proactive. I have decided to avoid AS at SFO whenever possible.

loungesong

My wife and I had the same problem last Thursday. 5:00 PM flight to LAS was initially delayed until 6:30 PM due to weather (SFO was clear as was LAS, not sure where plane was coming from). I saw on the app at 6:00 PM the flight was canceled as did a few others mulling about. Gate agents did not update boards. I called immediately and they said they were not yet filling the standby list for the 9:30 PM (which was unacceptable). I demanded another airline so they put me on a UA flight. The phone call took at least 45 minutes. About 15 minutes into my call they announced the flight was canceled due to maintenance (the aircraft was at the gate). They said a lot of people would not be getting to Vegas that night because the 9:30 was full and to go to Customer Service.

This was not completely true. A small line had formed at the gate and I noticed they were putting people on the 9:30 flight.

Honestly I'm not that sure what the proper procedure should have been but I felt like with UA they would automatically put me on something that I could then call to improve if necessary.

jrl767

chrisl137

UA is generally better at IRROPS than AS, but SFO is so tightly scheduled that they might not have done much better for you. They'll cancel RJ flights to leave slots for the mainline aircraft, and SFO-LAS is probably an RJ. SFO can also have weather delays when it looks clear but the winds are wrong somewhere in the region and they end up losing use of one of the runways. I was burned by that in December on UA when I took a UA connection through SFO because I needed UA miles, but it ended up more than doubling how long it took to get LAX-PDX.