Trappy

findark

Flying standby in a premium cabin is next to impossible. Most GAs will run the upgrade list prior to the standby list, and the system is not built to support standby for premium pax.

Also, flying standby for a connecting itinerary is also extremely difficult. They will not clear you standby onto e.g. PDX-IAH if you don't have a confirmed IAH-LHR.

mahasamatman

I don't think so. Upgrades should be processed before standby.

laxmillenial

With how difficult it is to fly standby in a premium cabin, is there a reason why you're not considering SDC? That's what I would consider, as you're 'confirmed' in the premium cabin due to your fare class needing to be available.

adambadam

What is your current routing? I don't think they let you fly standby to a new connecting point if you can't confirm a seat on a second leg.

I would just keep monitoring. Frequently they will open up the fare buckets at about T-4. Realize this still puts you in a predicament as you have the connecting issue but you never know.

Trappy

findark

No. I think your best bet is to hope for P space at leveling time and SDC.

bluedemon211

Unless I am misunderstanding your dateline, you cannot standby on Sunday for a ticketed flight on Monday. Your options are a) pay a change fee and fare difference (if applicable) or b) SDC (maybe more than once) to get your desired flight on Sunday.

username

I would have thought the computer would clear the "standbys" (waitlists) based on booking class so stand-by for P would get cleared before upgrade-list for R?

jsloan

Actually, that's not true. I've definitely seen standby passengers cleared in advance when it's obvious that they'll be able to make it on. For example, I've seen passengers clear for domestic flights between T-60 and T-30 before. It's probably technically against policy -- I'd hate to be the GA that did that immediately before another flight was cancelled or something -- but it does sometimes happen.

That said, I agree with your second point -- SDC is the way to go. You can't count on the standby passengers being processed in advance.

OP: Watch flight inventory like a hawk, and call UA immediately to SDC if you see any P inventory open up from PDX. Otherwise, you can't change routing on a standby flight -- UA isn't interested in having you get to, e.g., IAH, with no confirmed ticket on an IAH-LHR flight in case your standby flight doesn't clear. Standing by a day early, even on the same routing, is a YMMV situation. Your best bet may be to show up at the airport and explain the situation to an agent and see what they suggest.

PS: Note that UA does not serve PDX-LAX nonstop; you'd need to connect at SFO first if you're trying to get onto the LAX flight.

The computer's not clearing any of these; standby passengers are cleared by GAs, because the GA has to confirm that the pax is present and ready to board. There are several different lists in Aero that get merged together to form the publicly viewable standby and upgrade lists. I don't think

Waitlisted passengers are different, as those are cleared in advance automatically (and, yes, into specific fare classes) -- but I don't believe it's possible to waitlist a flight change in P. In fact, I don't think it's possible (per policy) to waitlist for P at all. For example, I don't think you can call up UA and say "there's a P fare filed for flight 1234, but there's no P inventory; I'd like to pay for the P fare anyway and waitlist." Similarly, you can't call up UA and waitlist for G or K, then hope for bucket equalization at T-3 hours.

threeoh

I don't think this is against policy, it seems to be SOP for GAs to clear standbys (including revenue and NRSA) as soon as they can. If the flight is wide open they clear them shortly after the gate opens. If it's a little tighter they'll wait till T-30 or so to wait for last-minute bookings, SDC, and to see who is likely to misconnect. In my experience, they only wait till the very end of boarding (at or after T-15) if they absolutely have to -- i.e. the flight checked in full or within a seat or two of full and they are waiting for no-shows.

At some smaller (for UA) int'l stations where there are exit customs/immigration formalities, they will even clear standbys at the check-in counter right at the close of normal check-in, before the UA team closes the counter to head to the gate to process boarding. This happened to me at EZE, for example.

1KChinito

It happened to me at TPE along with a few other PAX.

jsloan

blueman2

Well, mahasamatman is correct. I flew UA ps (ok, transcon premium) last weekend in confirmed in D class BOS-SFO for 8:20pm flight. I got to the airport by 2pm, so did standby for 3:55 then 6:20pm flights. I was top of the list for both. But for both, I saw 2-3 people put into upgrade confirmed while I was wiating at the gate. I asked the GAs in both cases, and they said it is UA policy to clear upgrades BEFORE clearing standby paid F tickets. I pressed the second GA, and they quoted a GG rule that I did not think to write down. But it sure sounded like their process is favors upgraders over standby paid F. So unless you can SDC, never even try F standby.

cfischer

With 2-3 pax clearing it is unusual to not see D-class available. Did you set an alert for D? SDC works quite well close to departure but sby is a crapshoot on a premium ticket since they indeed first clear upgrades.