American eliminates free standby for most passengers

By: Ben Schlappig

Updated: February 28, 2024
Published: February 10, 2010

10 comments

Yep, and elite status continues to become more valuable. For tickets purchased on or after February 22, only the following passengers will be allowed to standby for an earlier or later flight for free:

AAdvantage Executive Platinum®, AAdvantage Platinum® and AAdvantage Gold®, as well as oneworld® Alliance Emerald, Sapphire or Ruby members

Those who purchase tickets in First and Business Class as well as those who purchase unrestricted Economy Class fares (Y, B, H class of service)

Active U.S. Military personnel traveling on orders or personal travel and active U.S. Military dependents traveling on orders

All other customers will only be able to make a confirmed same day flight change within 12 hours of their flight for $50. Full details can be found here.

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Tom Guest

February 11, 2010, 1:20 pm

What can I say.....just one more reason for me not to fly American.....if DFW and the dirty old planes weren't reasons enough

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Mark Guest

February 11, 2010, 9:52 am

@Nick - Anyone standing by for free is taking a chance that someone will CFC in front them, same as it is currently, so no change. Only way for anyone to be assured a seat is to CFC, although EXPs sometimes have the fee waved as a courtesy.

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JOSH Guest

February 10, 2010, 10:49 pm

That's good to hear, hope UA would follow. JOSH

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Gary Gold

February 10, 2010, 5:47 pm

Hey, I remember when UA used to have same-day confirmed for 1Ps and above at no charge!!

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unavaca Guest

February 10, 2010, 5:29 pm

Ugh, I hope UA doesn't kill off free standby; it's one of the few things that UA does better than WN. (And before you say WN doesn't fly to PVG, free standby is only available in Region 1. AKA, WN's killing grounds.)

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