City Pair Standby Not Allowed?
 

I am flying 3/11 to CDG, routing DFW-LGA and then JFK-CDG. In the past, I have gone to a different city in a city pair on a standby - flights to LGA i've gone to JFK, HOU i've gone to IAH. I was told that I would not be allowed to do this on 3/11, however, since this is an international itinerary. Should that matter, given that the flight in question is purely domestic? Should I play the call-back game, or are they right on this one?

It's fairly difficult to alter the domestic portion of an international itin. Other than when due to irregular ops (flight cancellations and such) AA just doesn't allow it. I have no idea why.

I probably fly SB on 25% of my domestic flights. Usually same city pair; very occasionally from a co-terminal. Never a problem. Several years ago I tried flying SB for the same city pair internationally (not even a co-term) and quickly found out about AA's policy not permitting SB internationally. The agent had to make multiple phone calls to get me on the flight, but based on that experience I would never try it again - even though I did it innocently that time. Like Square Dance Guy, I have no idea why it is an issue with AA.

I of course meant co-terminal, not city pair... :(

I can understand not letting me standby for the direct DFW-CDG flight, but I don't understand why they care how I get to NYC, when they never seem to care when I don't have an international connection later.

I think the standby policies need to be fine tuned and clarified.

I recently was allowed to SB to a non-stop instead of a connection, but another time I was not allowed such SB even though there was the potential of a misconnect or weather delay. In that case, I persisted and was finally allowed to board the non-stop. Good thing, too. My original, connecting flight was cancelled due to weather which would have left me stuck in TPA, on my own dime, for the night.