Stand By Based on Fare, not Status?
 

Hi,not sure if this has already been covered.

I was flying stand by today trying to catch an earlier flight home. The gate agent said there was one platinum member ahead of me and it would be close. I asked if I should be ahead since I was a 1k, and she said it used to be that way, but it's based on fare class now.

How long ago did this start? I think this is my 2nd or 3rd time going stand by, so maybe I'm just misinformed, or assuming it's the same process as upgrades.

Thanks!

Yet again a misinformed agent. The agent was wrong. If she put you on the standby list you should have appeared as #1. The only way the Plat would have beaten you is if they were a misplaced pax from an earlier flight and they misconnected.

-RM

Thanks for the reply. She did put me on, and I did end up as 2. She did comment that #1 and I were probably relieved to be getting an earlier flight, even though we were in middle seats (which I was). So I would assume he wasn't misplaced. I did peek at his BP and it didnt indicate 1k on the bottom.

I made it on, so Im not ungrateful, just curious how the process got sidestepped.

I was also on an M fare ticket, so it wasn't like a deep discount fare either.

There are many stand-by priorities (aside from the usual distressed passengers > voluntary passengers and 1K > Platinum). Check out the employee codes for an example:

2013 Doc:
http://www.unitedafa.org/docs/benefi...rity_chart.pdf

2012 Doc with more explanation:
https://www.rupa.org/uploads/03-16-1...rityPolicy.pdf

I thought a F passenger standing by for Y trumped a Y passenger standing by for Y, and then within those two groups it went by status.