GA tells to me board without a ticket
 

Last night, I was originally flying BWI-EWR-SDF, but because of the crazy storms, I tried finagle my way through ORD. I was confirmed on the ORD-SDF segment, but was on standby for BWI-ORD.

I was the only standby they took. The agent told me to sit in 6A and refused to give me a ticket. I boarded the plane without anything and the door closed. I move my flights around A LOT, and this was the first time I've boarded a plane without anything after standby. Does anyone else think this is strange? My named never showed up on the cleared list either. Does United even have a record of me being on this flight? I hope my miles post...

First thing I would do is check your pnr. It should still be available online. If it is not updated, call UA.

How did your ORD-SDF flight go? If you got on it you got lucky as UA (since the merger) is prone to quickly canceling any onward legs if you don't take a segment and without any paperwork or BP's or tickets it could cause a problem.

Could it be the GA wanted to close the flight, and would process the OP after boarding, perhaps to save an open ATC?

Not saying it's the right thing to do...

Not an unknown practice and most likely the reason but given SHARES tendency to aggressively "clean up" itins, it is absolutely imperative to check your itin as soon as possible after this happens. More than once it has led to cancelled future segments -- and/or issues on collecting mileage credit.

^ to the GA getting OP on the flight, so "trust but verify."

Exactly what I was worried about. I didn't have any confirmation of my SDF-ORD flight either, so I was worried when I boarded. She told me to pick up my BP in ORD for SDF. I checked in at the gate to SDF and had no issues. I guess she took care of everything after the flight pushed, but I felt pretty "naked" when she told me to board.

I've had a very similar situation, but with no connection, so no stress. Cleared standby at CHS but the gate printer jammed or otherwise wasn't working, so agent marked me as boarded on the computer, but I didn't have a paper BP. It might have been available on my mobile device - I didn't think to check. Everything posted as normal.

You didn't board without a ticket ---You boarded without a boarding pass!
Not to worry --- The g/a didn't have time to print one and wanted to close the door --- Not to worry, happens quite often!!!;)

Happens quite often? Funny, in my 16 years and 1.2 million miles of frequent flying it's the first time I have heard of it.

Not often, but in my 1 MM of bis, it happens every couple years.

It's happened to me about 4 or 5 times in my 2.7 mil travel!
Put another 1.5 mil on your butt and perhaps it will happen to you!

Actually, it's happened probably more than I've stated when I'm the last one called by the g/a at the reader, and he /she wants to close the door w/o going to the podium. The last thing I'm concerned about is a b/p stub, especially when I've missed a pre-departure cocktail or 2.

It's happened to me twice, both times when I cleared standby last minute at the gate (once on HP and once on AA). On the AA one they took my customer verification pass and wrote "9B" on it :D

It happened to me once before. You had a ticket, just no printed doc.

What is a "customer verification pass"?

There was a thread about this not too long ago where UA didn't have any record of the person being on the flight. Fortunately, the flyer bought something on board and submitted the credit card receipt as proof.