I was scheduled out at 6pm on Thursday to fly LGA – DTW – MSN, arriving at 10:25pm. Finished up early and got to the airport around 3pm and asked to waitlist on the LGA – DTW flight leaving at 4:21pm and through to MSN on the flight leaving DTW at 7:19pm. Home early!

The counter agent said she was “too busy” and to go the gate. I went instead to the WorldClub and asked to be put on the waitlist for both flights. WorldClub agent put me on the LGA – DTW waitlist but said the system wouldn’t allow her to put me on the DTW – MSN waitlist. After awhile, I went out to the gate and asked the agent if he could get me on the waitlist for DTW – MSN. He said “sure” but when he tried to access the system, he couldn’t do it. Nice, persistent guy, he called NW on the phone and said he wanted to get me waitlisted. He was perplexed to be told “we don’t do that, each segment must be waitlisted at the segment’s departure airport”.

This was news to him, and to me. I’ve waitlisted many times previously (though not for some months) and have always been able to get the entire routing either confirmed or at least put on the waitlist at both airports prior to leaving the first one.

Both flights were crowded, but there was never a mention of the waitlist being “full” – and my ticket, while not a Y fare, was not overly restricted. I made the first flight and, sure enough, when I got to Detroit, had to waitlist again and fortunately made the flight. Gave up FC on both legs but got home early – a fair trade.

My question then, is this standard practice to waitlist one leg at a time or was this an anomaly?

Seems like an anomaly. However, things may have changed after the FlyNowFee option was introduced.

- Pat

That is normal now. The etkt must be linked through the original reservation, so say the msy dtw msn, only mys can do the msydtw segment, and dtw can only do the dtwmsn segment.
If you use the SSD it will list you all the way through. The counter/gate cannot.

This is not good news. There's no peace of mind if you standby without paying the $25 fee because now you can get stranded in your connecting city. Knew that there'd be a downfall to the FlyNow option.

You can still list standby all the way thru using the SSD.

SSDs are not readily available once past security. In fact, you almost always have to see an agent unless you want to go through the TSA carnival again.

If the agents can't do it, I give it a few more weeks until the SSDs won't do it either. Many of us called the disappearence of the free standby when NW introduced the FlyNow program earlier this month... looks like it's beginning to come true.