I spoke with two Elite Desk reps tonight trying to do a SDC swap on my flights tomorrow. Both reps stated that the original booking class must be available to do a SDC swap.

All fine and good, except that very, very important distinction is missing from all of CO's press releases and online descriptions of the service - or is buried somewhere.

I think this rule should be very prominently displayed on the online info page, even bolded for extra emphasis. Had I known the same fare class needed to be available, I could have checked that ahead of time and not wasted the phone calls.

I'm pretty certain that in most cases, within 24 hours of departure, having the same fare class (especially sub-V) available is right around 5%.

wow... So it is like I feared, but even worse: Even same day changes made the day before needs to have the original bookingclass available.

Very disappointing...

I would love to get a comment from CO Insider on this... The press release says nothing about this at all

I'm going to hazard a guess, and it is just a guess, that the agents are mis-informed. My basis for that opinion has been that in all my interactions with this policy, there has been a ton of mis-information out there (such as agents not knowing that the fee is only $25 for Plats and Golds -- you have to get them to read GG-whatever before they see it.)

This is a confusing new policy for everyone, and eventually it'll get ironed out, but in the early days I'd highly suggest going the online route for the best chances at a good result.

CO used to open all fare classes 3 hours before departure. I guess they are still doing that (verified with a quick lookup on experflyer). What a horrible deception on their part about the 12/24 hour SDC policy. It is useless until 3 hours before departure.

COInsider, if this is indeed the policy, you guys should be ashamed of yourselves.

I tried going online - if I choose 'change flights', I'm only offered true changes - full change fee + fare difference. If I use the check-in system, I don't see a place to do a SDC change - am I missing it somewhere?

I actually believe that the fare classes do need to be available to confirm the change. CO's systems should be opening the buckets up but they might be doing it only at T-3 hours from the earlier version of the system. There is no reason for CO to not open up the low fare buckets at T-24 since the advance purchase requirements are almost certainly not going to be met. Even with that rule you should be able to do it as a standby (as opposed to SDC) and get on the flight at the gate.

I tried it today in an effort to get back to EWR reasonably close to my originally scheduled time. Online I was given the option and put in my CC info for the $25 standby. My name didn't show up on the PDA list and my BP for my confirmed flight changed to a standby BP instead of a EUA'd seat. I called the elite desk and the agent offered to move me for free since my original flight was so badly delayed. She confirmed me into 6E (best available seat) and I was able to do PDA check-in as soon as I hung up the phone. Now I just have to see if the $25 charge shows up on my CC or not so I can get it waived. Overall it worked really well for me in this instance by calling it in; the online only sortof seemed to work.

I confirmed the fare class requirement with another agent - this appears to be policy, so in my opinion, it MUST be clearly, and concisely spelled out on co.com.

The 3rd agent said co.com is not setup yet for SDC, but another agent said the reason why the option is not showing up for me, is there are no flights tomorrow with my fare class available, therefore there is nothing I can SDC into, and the option will not show.

Now I don't know what to believe.

The "biz traveler" as you define them are an endangered species. Most of us have corporate policies that dictate booking the lowest fare available. They are often last minute, and not inexpensive, but not fully flexible. I have no problem paying (and expensing) a set SDC or standby fee, but having to refare the new ticket is a dealbreaker.

The fare class requirement is something that definitely needs to be clarified in writing (Scott!!?!?!?) If it's true that the original fare class must be available in order for the $25/$50 SDC fee to apply without a fare difference calculation, then the new policy is absolutely ridiculous and a big from frequent fliers and business travelers who are just trying to get home..........................

My experience using this yesterday was that I was not prompted for any change options when I did OLCI ~23.5 hours out. When I went back onto the site about 4 hours out I was. Of course, the website presented me with a "standby" option even though the announcement page clearly states that "Requests to travel standby may only be handled at an airport kiosk or with a Continental airport representative," which may be why the website generally isn't showing the option. So in the past 24 hours I've seen it go both ways. I should note that I didn't check fare class availability online when I made the change but I booked over into my original fare class from what I can tell and it was inside the 3 hour window for the new flight, which is why I think that the buckets are only opening wide at T-3, not T-24.

There is always the standby option if the fare class isn't available. You still have to pay the fee and there is no guarantee that you'll get the change, but the option exists.

I don't think CO should charge us unless they are confirming it at the time of requesting the change, but they clearly aren't using my preferences in this program.

Sounds like the system knows your original fare class and will only present the option if the process is doable.

That too should be clearly communicated on the website.

I don't know if I should laugh or cry after my first encounter with the new same day stand by rule this morning.

After trying to get home from CLE to ORD last night on the 8:40PM flight calling 4 different times, I gave up. All agents told me my booking class was not available and I could not stand by... No dice on the OLCI either. (was booked on the 8:30AM flight this morning). So I show up and got in pretty early so I decided to check out the brand new same day stand by first hand and get on the 7:35AM flight .

I could do it at the gate, the GA wanted 50 dollars. I reminded him to look at my BP where it says Platinum. He said it was the same price for everyone, I kindly replied that elite pay USD25. A lady in a red jacket came over and said "let's look up the rules on this new head ache Houston has blessed us with".

So out came a few print outs and another contender to the mornings nickel and dime tollbooth walked up. He was gold and wanted to stand by aswell. So after a few minutes the friendly red jacket lady said. Thank you for setting us straight, Elites of course only pay USD 25... The gold guy said "what?? I have paid 50 dollars two times earlier"

The friendly CO lady just shook her head and asked the Gentleman to please call CO about this.

So after about 15 minutes, 25 dollars was collected from the both of us and we had a shiny, new BP in our hands.

Two minutes later the other GA announced a 15 minute delay because the Captain who was commuting to work was arriving from Rochester late. I looked at the screens, the Rochester flight was landing early, so delay was not the factor. It was landing at 0752, the GA said it was landing at 0742 and expected the flight to leave at 0750, 15 minutes late.
The Captain was the issue here. He didn't plan his work day and was the sole reason for the delay. My new Gold friend and I both agreed that we trusted the screens more than the GA and that it would take waaaay more time than the GA said. We walked back to the gate and said we wanted a refund and to get on our original flight as well.

The answer? Forget it, the fee is non refundable. The nice lady whispered that maybe it was a good idea to give a refund because of the situation. Phones were in action, but rejected.

So we both tried at the President's Club where we almost got it sorted out, but just almost. We ran out of time and got on the flight and at 8:05 the Captain entered (as we predicted) with the morning face of the century. They of course pulled the jet bridge quicly but the Captain needs to go through the check list so we left the gate at 8:25, in the air 8:35 and landed 4 minutes before our original flight at ORD.

I don't know about the gold friend, but I called We Care and the agent there said that Plats were exempt from the change fee

I told her that every time I interacted with CO personnel, I get different answer and that she was wrong according to the website. As for the booking class issue, she didn't have an answer and was obviously embarrassed about how poorly this ridiculous policy has been implemented by CO.

I thought CO was a better airline, and as a fresh Platinum, in most cases they are.

But in this case they are coming across as much worse than United.

I hope you are reading this, Scott. This is hurting your business and it's amateur hour to say the least when your employees have no clue what the rules are and you website is NOT telling the truth..

End of the story was that I got my 25 bucks back (in 15-20 business days she said). But this headache is not something I want to deal with when traveling on business every week. Not to mention the GAs who have to deal with situations like the one I was in today.

This fee needs to go..

I don't think the fee needs to go - I think CO needs to ensure ALL PERTINENT details of the program are stated clearly, concisely and in plain english on co.com, along with example scenarios (want to standby but fare class is not available, want to standby but no seats are currently available, want to standby and seats and fare class are available) so someone can easily and clearly understand what to expect based the three possible scenarios.

As to the agents - every station should conduct an all-hands classroom session to ensure every single agent is aware of the policy, understands its pertinent features/rules and knows how to handle requests according to different elite levels (or no elite status) and the different availability scenarios. The same goes for every call center.

Why is it so hard? When I was doing part of my co-op at BusinessExpress/Comair, we had at-station training meetings all the time - every new policy, rule, etc., was communicated at the meeting, everyone had to demonstrate an understanding of it, and everyone was responsible for ensuring their coworker understood and correctly applied the rule while on the job. Simple.

Come on.... You don't see the problems the GA's will encounter with irr ops? I know I felt screwed this morning and I'm pretty sure even the most hard core CO fans on FT would have felt the same.

Mark my words, this rule will delay flights and give CO a major head ache, just wait till the winter comes. It will make customer p**** off. They are enforcing rules that have not been relayed to us customers and that's NOT good

And when CO is the only airline that charges this fee, it will have an impact.

Not worth it, man

A coworker of mine was leaving IAH tonight and wanted to get on an earlier flight. I told him of the new policy and that he'd have to pay $50 as a NW elite since CO doesn't give discounts on this program to their partners. When he made the switch, he was only charged $25 to get onto the new flight!

...you will be able to make flight changes within this 24-hour window for $50, or $25 for OnePass Platinum and Gold Elite members....

Link

All booking classes are opened up 12 hours before your target flight. Did you call > 12 hours out?

ETA: Looks like you were trying for "prior-day standby" instead of "same-day standby":