Have you ever flown stand-by?

[Alexander]

I booked our flights last June for this coming April. We originally were not going to be able to leave until after school at 6:50 PM. Now I am able to get the day off and would like to leave in the morning. Without rebooking (way too expensive) do you think we would have any chance of flying stand-by? I have checked the airlines policy, and they do allow it. I have also checked for flights leaving in the morning and there are a bunch. We are flying United. Has anyone ever done this and how did it work out?

 

[Lewisc]

Call the day before and see how booked they are. If you check luggage your luggage will go even if you don't clear. How many people are in your family? Are you willing to split your family? How many flights are available during the day? If the flight is booked, or overbooked, one or two standbys may clear but you can't count on your entire family clearing.

 

[ducklite]

I do it all the time! That said, I do it as a single passenger, and can even be flexible as to going into MCO or TPA.

Just because there are flights available now, they can fill up quickly. Generally until it's oversold, a carrier will leave the flights as open. So it's not so much that there are flights, it's that there are seats available on them.

I'd call the night before and ask about this.

THAT said I called last week about the availability of seats on a flight MCO/PHL, and was told there were plenty available. Left early and got to the gate, not only were there no seats, the standby list was so long it was closed. Not happy, wasted three hours sitting in the airport when I could have been relaxing at home.

Anne

 

[ducklite]

Lewis brought up a good point--they often don't/won't move you to an earlier flight if you've got checked bags (when I'm just flying back and forth between houses I only have laptop and pocketbook, and matbe a magazine.)

Anne

 

[Alexander]

There are three of us and splitting up is not an option. DS is only 6 and DH will be drugged up so he can even get on the plane! I need to be the parent for both of them!

There are at least 10 earlier flights during the day before ours leaves. When I checked to see if there were earlier flights, I did it through the reservation system and plugged in that I was looking for 10 seats (just to check) and all of the flights had availability.

There are 6 flights leaving between 5:30 and 6:30 in the morning, so I figured if we can't get on one of those we would head back home and just wait unitl our scheduled 6:50 pm flight.

Does anybody know if United offers the confirmed seating thing like Delta does? You call three hours in advance and they'll confirm you on an earlier flight?

 

[Lewisc]

Anne--They'll check your luggage but if you don't clear your luggage won't be pulled and it will go around the carousel until everyone leaves and an airline employee will grab it and store it for you.

Alexander you won't have any idea until the night before AND only look at N/S flights. People who don't show up will release a seat for a N/S flight but if a connecting flight is overbooked you might only get halfway there.

I was told to always standby for the first flight of the day. People oversleep, and get lost in traffic. Those same people wind up standing by for later flights.

If DH is drugged up the tension of standby probably won't be worth it unless the night before you find out there are plenty of empty seats.

 

[gw_lit]

There are 6 flights leaving between 5:30 and 6:30 in the morning, so I figured if we can't get on one of those we would head back home and just wait unitl our scheduled 6:50 pm flight.

Some of those 6 flights may be code share flights with USAir, so I wouldn't count on being standby on a few of those. Generally, they won't let you standby on a codeshare partner.

 

[CarolA]

It sounds like you also have to sit together and the chances of that happening are not good. Standbys board last and get last selection of the seats unless the flight is empty and they confirm you when you check in, but...

Also, now is really too early to tell what the flights will look like in June. None of us business travelers have booked yet.

 

[marriedmarylander]

My husband has actually flown United standby and so has his relatives. His brothers fly to our wedding on memorial day weekend. Two of them waited all day for a flight, and his parents chose to go the next day since there was no way 4 of them would get a flight flying stand by on the same day. DH on the other hand flew during non-holiday and it was just him at that time and he had no problems. I think it depends the day of the week, how many people you have.

 

[Alexander]

We leave in less than three weeks. How far in advance do business travelers book? Just out of curiousity. There are three of us and only two will need to sit together. DH will fall asleep and drool on who ever is next to him

I checked again and checked with United regarding their standby policy and they said as long as there are flights with seats available, there wouldn't be a problem. It may actually benefit them too as it sounds like our current flight is overbooked as usual! Of course they won't say it's overbooked, just that, "oh, yes this is a very full flight." Having flown out of our airport this day every year, experience tells me it's overbooked! Everyone is looking to get out of Upstate NY for the schools' spring breaks. I'll just wait until the night before and give United a call about available seating on earlier flights and decide if we should head for the airport earlier.

Thanks for all of your advice and suggestions. We have never done this before and just wondered what experience others have had.

 

[Lewisc]

We leave in less than three weeks. How far in advance do business travelers book? Just out of curiousity. There are three of us and only two will need to sit together. DH will fall asleep and drool on who ever is next to him

You won't know for sure the night before, call. Prior to that just check for 9 seats online. Business people, may change the night before, show up for an earlier flight or even just not show up.

PROBABLY WON'T WORK FOR YOU. It's unlikely you'll even get 2 seats together. By the time they clear the standbys middle seats will be remaining. You need the flight to be SO EMPTY that the GA clears you while there are still some seats together that are available for gate assignment.

You really ought to find out, maybe the night before, if they'll switch your reservation for a nominal fee. Standbys normally board right before the plane pushes off. Not even enough time to beg people to switch seats for you.

 

[DebbieB]

Anne--They'll check your luggage but if you don't clear your luggage won't be pulled and it will go around the carousel until everyone leaves and an airline employee will grab it and store it for you.

I thought it was a security issue if you have luggage on a flight but don't actually take that flight.

I did standby with USAir once. Luckily the earlier flight was nowhere near full so they assigned me a seat at the counter. I did not have checked luggage. They charge $25 for standby but luckily their credit card printer was not working so they did not charge me.

 

[Lewisc]

I thought it was a security issue if you have luggage on a flight but don't actually take that flight.

That changed when the TSA started screening, either by searching or with scanner, 100% of the checked luggage.

 

[CarolA]

I book about 3 days in advance if I am really on the ball. LOL! (But other companies are more organized then we are and do try for the 14 day advance deals!)

 

[ColoradoBelle1]

I've always had great luck doing this, and if you call the night before, they will actually let you know your 'chances'. If they say it looks good....you'll be fine.
I've usually made it on even when they said it was COMPLETELY booked,and, yes, there were 3 of us traveling then.

Another thing is to pull us the seats for the flight and see how many empties and where they are...united.com. Yes, if you are standing there, United would prefer to get you on any earlier plane with empty seats.

Good luck!
Never hurts to try!

 

[cruiseonmagic]

Hi there,
First let me say that without details of your flights (where you are leaving from, where do you connect, day, etc.), all I can give you is general info. I used to be a res supervisor for UAL, so I called a friend that still works there to see if anything has changed--overall, not much. United still has positive bag matching, which means that your bags will be on the flight that you are (unless someone screws up. ). Standby is free, providing that you are on a true United flight. As someone posted earlier, some of those 6 flts during that first hour ARE code share with us air. United has a total of 11 flts into MCO the whole day from its' hubs in dulles (IAD) and chicago (ORD). If your connecting city is PHL, CLT, or PIT, you will be flying US Airways. One more thing about connecting cities--they have to stay the same as what you are confirmed on--obviously if you are in PHL, and your confirmed flt is in CLT you're out of luck.

You can fly standby on US but there is a 25/ticket charge. You will need to call US to find the load status on their flights--United won't have that info in their system.

If you want to give me some details, I can give you a couple of suggestions.

Just a couple more things--the airlines will tell you if the flight that you're ticketed on is overbooked. They will not tell you how many seats are left. The seating charts that you see on the web only give you a rough idea as to how full the plane is--all of the seats are not available to be pre-assigned.

Before I moved to FL, I had a lot of success flying standby to MCO on early flts. I always got on the list for the 757 aircraft whenever possible because they had more first class seats than the airbus or 737. More 1st class meant more seats for people to upgrade, freeing up economy seats.

 

[ducklite]

I always got on the list for the 757 aircraft whenever possible because they had more first class seats than the airbus or 737. More 1st class meant more seats for people to upgrade, freeing up economy seats.

As an FYI, this is completely opposite on US Air. They have reconfigured most of their 757's to only have 8 first class seats, and the Airbus' have up to 20.

Anne

 

[cruiseonmagic]

As an FYI, this is completely opposite on US Air. They have reconfigured most of their 757's to only have 8 first class seats, and the Airbus' have up to 20.

Anne

You are right. I was referring to my flights on UAL. The A321's that us airways usually flies from phl-mco actually have 26 1st class, the 319's(and 737's) and 320's that would normally fly PIT or CLT-MCO have 12 and 16 1st class, respectively, and the 757's have 8. The point that I guess I didn't make clear was, if you have a couple of choices fairly close together, list on the aircraft that will give you the best chance, and just because economy may look full on the net, doesn't mean you can't get on.