So I had two SDCs yesterday my original was LAX > JFK

I switched to LAX > LAS > JFK (10PM out of LAS) I did this at around NOON

When my LAX to LAS flight was boarding they told me i was standby not confirmed I should of looked at the ticket and didnt make it on.

So I wnet to the agents by security I think its gate 50 and she tries to put me on the LAX to San Diego flight and San Diego to NY.

But said the system wouldn't let her because the San deigo to NY flight was more than 3 hours away.

Why was the system able to put me on the LAS to JFK flight earlier but not the San Diego to JFK flight which left earlier than the LAS to JFK flight?

Was she mistaken when she said 3 hours? My guess was it was an illegal route even though she insisted it wasn't.

She also went as far as to say let me try putting you into Y to see if I can get it done and the system wouldn't even let her do that which made me think again it was an illegal route.

I eventually ended up getting on the 7:30 LAS flight and the 10PM LAS to JFK flight FC all the way!

SDC only works within 3 hours of your NEW flight. If you did it @ noon for a 10 pm flight you got a same day standby.

There was an SDC thread earlier this week noting a problem routing LAX through SAN. Maybe your fare didn't permit LAX-SAN-JFK? SDC doesn't supersede fare routing rules.

The following cities are valid for connections on LAX-JFK (single connects only, no double connects allowed per the fare rules):

SLC
MSP
DTW
CVG
MEM
ATL
BOS
WAS (incl. IAD/DCA)
BWI
BDL
IND
DEN
SFO
LAS
PHX

San Diego is not one of the cities that allows for a legal connection, so you can't SDC to it - if tried, it should come up for a refare and not the SDC fee. Of course, when irops come into play, agents can do some things that are against the fare rules, but under normal circumstances that isn't allowed.

To each his own, but I'm still trying to figure out why one would want to change from a nonstop to a connection . . . .

Technically I was within the 3 hour window the LAS and San diego flights were at 2 oclock just the connection wasn't.

@Rober the direct would of gotten me into NY hours after I wanted to be in NY.

did you confirm the SDC online? Sounds to me like you got a standby instead.

I was confirmed on the flight 5 hours out the LAS flight and I was put standby on the LAX to LAS flight. I eventually still made the flight I was confirmed on 5 hours later I just had a tigther connection as they put me standby on the first flight I was availablef or to LAS.

I was just surprised she said LAX - San Diego - JFK was a leagal connection and she was trying to put me on it

more miles?
better chance for upgrade?

If an upgrade wasn't going to clear on LAX/SFO-JFK I'd look to SDC elsewhere if I had the time.

I did it for three reasons, more miles and better change of the upgrade which I got. The LAX flight I was on was oversold and I really needed to get to NY earlier which the connecting flight did.

When I checked in the upgrade list for the LAX to JFK flight I was on had 45 people 12 hours out on the upgrade list and 0 available seats. E3 had just ended.

+1, but there are many people on this board who will pay extra to fly multiple legs to get points or increase status. I don't get it either, but, then again, there are probably many things I do that they wouldn't get, too.

When I SDC'd LAX-SLC-ATL-PVD, SMS put at notation in my record indicating that I would be calling back within 3 hours of the new flight time, so that when I would miss the original flight, it would still be possible to SDC onto the later flights with no problems.