$300 [or maybe £300] charge to standby LHR-ORD
 

Does anyone know why AA charges $300 for the privilege of standing by for an earlier flight from Heathrow? Today is spring daylight savings in the UK, so I figured some folks would miss the earliest LHR-ORD flight and I could stand by to get home earlier. This would give AA the bonus of opening up my seat on my midday confirmed flight, which is overbooked.

fyi, this is the email I sent AA customer service from my seat in the Admirals Lounge (I'm Plat, flying discount economy today).
Dear Sir or Madam,
In hopes of getting home sooner from a business trip today, I called the Platinum Aadvantage desk to ask about standby on the 7:45 am flight from Heathrow to Chicago (AA99). I have a confirmed seat on AA87. I was told that the flight was full, but I could try anyway. I had provided my Aadvantage number and gave my origin and destination information. At no point was I told that I would have to *pay* for the privilege of attempting to standby. Here are my next encounters with AA agents:
1. Priority check-in: "there is a 300 *pound* charge to change your ticket, go to the ticket agent in section F"
2. Ticket agent in section F (name deleted), whose uniform was visibly dirty and was very curt): 'there is a 300 *dollar* charge to change your ticket.'
I decided not to spend the money, so I went to the Admirals Club lounge, but gave it a last shot
3. Admirals Club personnel: 'we believe there is a $300 charge, but let's see what we can do'
4. Final result, delivered by Admirals Club personnel: 'sorry, there is a $300 charge, but that is not for changing your ticket, it is for *standing by*, in other words, you will pay $300 and have no guarantee of a seat.
To say that I was very annoyed that the Aadvantage desk did not inform me of these charges so that I could choose to get a full night's sleep and take my planned flight is an understatement.

The policy to charge for standby is stupid beyond belief.

Sameday standby is typically for domestic flights only

1. There is no way you can stand by for an international flight without ticket change. That is the ticket change to try to get you to the earlier flight. I believe this is because they didn't have the same fare code that you got in the first place. Based on EF, I see that only Y2 is available, so if you don't want to get up to Y with the fare difference, then the only way you can do is to stand by for the flight.

Essentially - they are trying to overbook you. Like you pay for a domestic fare, but you are not guaranteed a seat because

(a) You are the last person to check in.
(b) You are the last person to purchase the tix.
(c) You are right out of the list where AA is willing to overbook and bank on no-shows.

There is no fee for standby.
So, on that basis, it is odd if the agent really did say it was a standby fee.
It seems the ticket agent was correct, the AC agent was incorrect.

As someone else noted, it sounds like an upcharge to a fare that would have been changeable.

Technically I dont think you can 'standby' for intl.

A reservations agent can only rebook the ticket - change fees, new fare, etc

An airport agent can put you on the earlier flight for something between $0 and [the change fee for your old ticket + the new walk up fare].

The price they charge can vary wildly- and they have the power to override the nirmal ticking requirements just to get butts on planes...


They wasted your time by not explanining it, and having multiple stories. Had they said "you cannot technically standby, but if you ask the agent sometimes they can accomodate you although the cost may vary" that would have been more accurate.

300 pounds (~$446) seems like an upfare. There generally is no standby on international flights, as already stated by others.

I concur. According to the T&C's standby is not permitted on international segments. IRL you mileage may vary. However, I have found United States agents to be more flexible on this (I was going to say "US", but didn't want it to be confused with the airline code)
Standby policy is published on AA.com. Was the agent asked if there was a fee and said "no", or were they not asked?

As mentioned, there would be no charge to standby if standby was permitted

The checkin agent was correct that there was a change fee ( albeit got the currency incorrect ) and correctly sent you to the ticketing desk

The ticketing desk correctly stated the change fee plus there could be a change in fare too

The AC was correct in that there was a change fee , but seems to have incorrect in stating that it would be standby

You had the option to pay the fee and you seem to have got fairly good service with reasonably accurate information provided by the agents

getting on an earlier flight just by choice for no fee was really not likely to happen . Perhaps phoning the airport ticket desk at Heathrow might have been a better bet than a general reservations agent in the USA

It is published that standby is only for "domestic" itineraries

I suspect that the check in agent just got the currency incorrect. check in agents don't do ticketing and the agent did send the customer to a ticket desk that corrected it to $300. $300 sounds like the normal change fee for a dsicount economy ticket r/t from USA to UK

Ah, yes, now that number sounds familiar. The change fee, of course :)
Mystery solved. Of course, the phone agent could have simply stated standby was not permitted, and told OP he would have to pay the change fee. On the other hand, I would not lose sleep over trying to get on a flight that was fully booked.

It's very unlikely that OP can get upfare to Y(when I checked his flight with 40min left before departure) by paying exactly 300 pounds/dollars from discount economy to full fare Y. I could tell it's change fee.

UK agents will do whatever they can to charge you.

The UK agents will simply charge that which is due. The agent said that there would be a $300 change fee - since the passenger went no further in the request, probably the fare difference had not been calculated

Why such a slur on the agents for simply doing their job diligently? They do not try to charge the passenger - the charge is simply that based on what the customer had purchased

I get a sense of the "spoilt milk" theory at work here- my flight is later and oversold and it would be to their advantage to let me go on the earlier flight- so why should I have to pay? If this is true and you are in AC they will come and find you and ask you if you would be interested in travelling on the earlier flight. It is their option, not yours. Your option is to pay the change fee.

LHR is a pretty surly station, IME. Unlikely to get any favors there, and from your profile it doesn't appear you are an elite, which doesn't help.

You are absolutely correct. Honestly I don't have too much faith with agents in UK, even if I am EXP. Of all the instances where I got screwed with OneWorld, most are AA and BA especially in LHR, so I am not really impressed with their services at all. When something goes wrong, I wouldn't give them the benefit of the doubt because they know exactly what they are doing. In this case, they make up whatever they could to charge OP. Now, as I mentioned, if the flights end up being J2 all 0s and Y2...whenever someone bought a ticket, they may not get a seat assignment, and they have to proceed to the gate and get the seat assignment. I would call that as overbook. I think that's what OP claims as 'stand-by'.

With all that said, I think it's possible that the agents can get him to the earlier flight by paying to go for the earlier flight. Heck, OP could be in H or B then the up-fare might be minimal. It should be the change fee plus the fare difference if OP opts to go ahead with it.

Have OP gone ahead and reasoned with the agent by first asking about the chances of his flight getting oversold, he might have a much better case to just VDB for the earlier flight. The agents could skip the VDB voucher process for OP.

What a great and diplomatic way to say about LHR. I am feeling exactly the same thing. I have never had such a feeling/bad taste in NRT, HKG, ICN, or SIN.

This part sounds odd.

In cases where standby is allowed (i.e. domestic), if SDC is not available, passengers who don't qualify for free standby (no status,etc) may now pay the same $75 fee to try standby. But as the T&C note:

"Passengers who purchase Same-Day Standby and are unable to use it due to lack of available inventory, cancellation of standby flight, or involuntary routing change are eligible for a refund."

So if standby, you're refunded if you don't clear. For a re-ticketing, if you get IDB, then you get comp that should exceed the change fee.