stanj

Anybody know what the $25 confirmed standby policy is if you're connecting? Will they confirm you for a connecting flight, even though it's outside the 4 hour window, if the first flight is within the 4 hour window? And has anybody had any luck getting a phone agent to assign seats on the newly confirmed flight?

I tried to do this last weekend travelling CLE-ORD-SFO and got conflicting stories from four different phone agents. The first CSR I talked to said she could confirm me on both flights and assign me seats, but I had already checked in online, so I'd have to unckeck my self and then call back. Did that, but then the next CSR said she couldn't confirm me on the ORD-SFO flight because it was outside the 4 hour window. Hung up and called back again to be told that both flights could be confirmed, but that she couldn't assign seats. She said they can "never" assign seats on $25 confirmed standby flights.

Called back yet again, to be told that both flights could be confirmed and that seats could have been assigned on the ORD-SFO flight, but that we just missed (by about two minutes) the six-hour point when the airport takes control of the seating plan.

After all that, I finally decided it wasn't worth the risk of getting stuck back in E- or a middle seat, so stayed with the original flights.

Down side to all this was that I lost my place on the upgrade waitlist when I unchecked-in. To top it off, when we got to ORD I had the RCC change the account from which the 500 mile certs would come out of for my record but not my wife's. We went to the gate and my wife's name was on the screen for a possible upgrade, but my name wasn't. When I talked to the GA, he said she was higher on the list (I'm assuming based on time added to DM) and that there were people ahead of me, so I had no chance of getting an upgrade. When I looked at my DM card it showed that I was just added. Lesson learned the hard way.