I've got an AA-issued OW award that has me flying JFK-MAD on IB in a couple of weeks. I'd like to leave a day earlier than the current res: the IB site shows award seats available, but the AAdvantage folks say they have no award inventory. (It's possible, of course, that IB has additional inventory for their own FFs, though I hadn't heard of that happening before.) The AA TA also said that standby isn't permitted on international flights. It's the last part that I'm wondering about, as it seems 99.9% certain that there will be seats available when I want to travel (bus class, mid-week, latter part of August, and with >9 C-class seats still available).

Anyone have experience showing up at the airport with an international segment on a OW award ticket?

Are you sure? I see the end of August pretty much unavailable. If you wish you can PM me a date and I will take another look.

IB will require that AA reissue the ticket for your flight. This takes time and effectively eliminates standby (AA cannot reissue unless the U class inventory is available). So you have to contact IB to get U released, and then AA to get the ticket reissued (presumably it is an e-ticket, which makes it a bit easier). IB seems rather chaotic in its ground handling and would probably prefer to load non-revs than release U inventory. At least that is my experience. IB can be incredibly bureaucratic, it once took me 2 hours to change a full-fare J ticket to an earlier flight on IB (same route and even the same date, just different time, and this was in MAD).

No, I'm not. I am a fool with poor eyesight.

I was looking at JFK-MAD on 21-Aug, and I saw availability for "B.u~ Class." On closer inspection, that availability is for Blue Class, not Business Class.

Sorry, never mind, I'm off to the Optical shop.