Gate agent upgrades friend / employee over FF
 

So this is a new one for me. I had a confirmed upgrade from Y to F for a late evening direct flight home.
Meetings ended early, got on standby for an earlier flight and headed to airport (no checked bags)

I arrived at the gate about 30 minutes to boarding and the gate agent was chatting with a "friend". The friend just stepped aside (stood at the counter) when I asked about when the standby was to clear. I was #1 of 7 on standby due to my status I guess. There were about 8 seats open in Y so we would all likely clear.

I noticed that there was only one upgrade request on the TV-board, looked quickly at seat availability and there were two open seats.

I asked to get back on an upgrade request list once my standby cleared in case no one else was in line for it.

I was told "No" under no circumstances can that be done. Standby passengers are not eligible for upgrades. I mentioned that this did not reflect my experience in the past. I wasn't asking to jump in line. It appears there is going to be an open seat and if no one has claimed it I'd like to be on the list.
The Gate agent said "Well those people broke the rules- You aren't eligible."

It's not a long flight.. I'm happy to get home early, so I left it at that. The gate agent goes back to chatting with the friend, etc. So I clear, get a bulkhead seat, and as First class is boarding, I see the gate agent wink to the friend and the friend runs over as the agent pushes a button or two and a boarding pass pops out. Friendly glances are exchanged and the friend hops on the plane.

When I board, I'm right behind the friend, who is sitting in the open First class seat.

I'm like.. OK. Now I see. What was worse was that the friend was obviously an employee and the whole cabin crew comes over to greet this young person, remarking on how lucky the person was to get an open seat in first. They mentioned this three times during the flight. So I get to listen to this on the flight, just shaking my head. Then the friend is the last to be served "snacks" and empties the snack box contents in his American Airlines bag. .

I reached out to AA and all I got was "Sorry you weren't able to sit up front on your flight" The Twitter team did tell me that I should have been eligible for an upgrade if no one was on the upgrade request list.

I don't blame an entire airline for this stuff, but it makes me wonder how often this happens.

As constantly discussed on FT certain GAs make up their own rules (or deny the existence of certain policy) and do all kinds of underhanded things. Sadly, AA in this case doesn't seem to want to look into your allegations.

Please fully report this rogue flight attendant. She needs to be terminated immediately.

This seems to be a fairly common (mis?) conception among gate agents.

Normally, upgrades are processed before standbys, so by the time you clear standby there's not usually any available seat in F, making the question "are cleared standbys eligible for upgrades?" completely moot. But occasionally there are still empty seats in F by the time standbys have cleared.

Once you clear standby you should be treated just like any other pax on that flight. In other words, you are "on" that flight-- there's no going back as your seat on your original flight is released (I don't know how it works behind the scenes but this is definitely how it appears). GA should not be able to essentially treat you like a second class citizen because you were previously standing by. Like others, I have had successful and unsuccessful attempts at clearing an upgrade after clearing standby. The problem is that it's not automatic-- the GA has to add you to the list after you clea. Here is where it leads to the problem described by the OP, and where GAs apparently need some additional training...

A few years ago I was flying JFK-LAX-LAS, my JFK-LAX arrived early, I went to the gate for the next LAX-LAS, I requested to go standby (I was already in F [via upg] for my original LAX-LAS), I cleared standby list AND got upgraded simultaneously.^

The standby/upgrade situation has been discussed a lot here on FT (not necessarily related to a GA's friend).

Seems that the general rule is that upgrades for scheduled passengers trump upgrades for standby. I've had several occasions on paid business/first where they got me on an earlier connecting flight, but did not upgrade me- even though they cleared me onto the flight before processing the upgrade list. Is these scenarios, I get an automatic refund for the 'downgrade', which goes counter to the AA way of maximizing revenue...

I doubt if AA is going to do much of anything. I would also bet the "friend" in question was an employee non-reving.

I tried, but the response I got back was underwhelming. They apologized, but that's the end. ;) The responses here help, though.

Explain.

It sucks when the system doesn't work. It sucks that you have to fight for what is deservedly yours. It happens way more often than we thin and goes undetected most of the time. I know it's beating a dead horse but but employees that are treated and trained properly typically wouldn't do this.

I though the policy was that you couldn't be upgraded if you were standing by. I understand that once you clear the standby list you *can* be added to the upgrade list, but I didn't know it was the *entitlement* being asserted here.

Happens all the time, and not just on AA. And as long as GAs and FAs have free rein to do what they want without accountability, it always will. As for reporting the employee... I expect there is more abuse of this kind on a daily basis than AA could ever hope to deal with, even if management cared. It would be like calling up the State Police to report that yesterday you saw a car going 65 in a 60 zone.

spewing BS to the OP about upgrade list, apparently upgrading someone else friend/employee. Anything else?

Did you mention the agent's name to AA? That's a shame if they just brush it off.