I have a flight for tomorrow - if i show up today and play dumb, what will happen?
 

Hey all,

I'm a 1K w/ United. I'm in DC right now and have a 6AM flight back to SFO tomorrow morning. I don't feel like staying the night here. If i show up to the airport bummed about how i missed my 6AM flight "today", looking to stand by, will the Ticket agent pity me because i'm clueless and put me on a flight home tonight (or let me stand by) or will she just tell me to show up in the mornign? I don't feel like paying all the change fees haha

I think the change fee for your RETURN leg is only $100, no refare is involved if you fly standby or your booking class is open. Given you'd probably have costs of overnighting in DC tonight, why not pay the $100 and be done with it?

That said, if you do play dumb, let us know what happens. FWIW I think agents are more likely to take pity on you if you show up a day late, instead of a day early, but I could be wrong!

Good luck!

I don't think anyone feels like paying change fees. Simply put, depends on how good of an actor you are and how sympathetic of an agent you get. Technically they shouldn't let you take it, but some agents may be very very nice. That being said if you're going to show up now you'll have a hard time agruing you misses a 6AM flight. If you arrived at 7AM this morning you may have had a better shot.

Don't play dumb. You're in the 24-hour OLCI window. Print your boarding pass, go to the gate of the earlier flight and ask the GA if there is room for you.

I think the conversation would go something like this

"Oh no, I missed my 6am flight this morning. can you help me."
"Yes! I can! You're so lucky, you didn't miss your flight. It's not till tommorow!"

In theory, the ID checker at security (TSA or contractor) should not let the OP through with a BP for the next day. In actuality, I suspect a > 50% chance of getting through security, because they seem more interested in checking the expiration date on the ID than anything else.

That or...

"I'm so sorry, here let me cancel this ticket for you, and rebook it. That will be $3000." :D

I've done this twice with AA in the past year.

Once, it was just the $100 change fee.
The second time, I was asked for the change fee plus the difference in fare. I did negotiate down, but it was $250 to come back to SEA a day early.

Good luck.

For what it's worth, I once showed up at CDG on March xx with a ticket for May xx -- I had mistakenly entered May instead of March for the return when I bought the ticket. I wasn't playing dumb, and I think you'd have to be a pretty good actor to feign the "holy s---" expression on my face when the checkin agent pointed it out to me. Long story short, they let me stand by without a fee for a flight that was seriously overbooked, and I even ended up with an op-up to C. They made a big deal about doing it because of my then-1P status.

No, they're just interested in perpetuating their jobs. Last month at SFO, they let me through with my wife's boarding pass and didn't say a word.

I would think explaining to the TSA person that you are standing by for the earlier flight would get you through, although perhaps in DC things are tougher. In any case, I've almost had better luck getting those kinds of change fees overlooked at the gate than at the ticket counter. (Mommy says no, but when I ask Daddy...)

I think playing dumb would be, well, dumb.

Ahhh... for the Concierges
 

Back in the day, ticket counter, RCC and GA friends let me on a few times when I did this (ahem -- over several years). Actually, those times were genuine "brain f----". And mahasa's example reminds me of the time I showed up with my son's passport. No go, that time, of course. Fortunately, BOS is close enough to Boston that the situation was rectified by my wife in time.

Back to the main topic... another reason to pine for the Concierges. I'll bet this was a major benefit of that program more than many of us would admit.

But a lot of things have changed. That was then, this is now.....

1Ks don't pay change fees..... :)

on award tix

Is United really going to let the plane leave with an empty seat and you there and willing to exchange an about to be wasted seat for a seat they have 24 hours to try and sell?