New electronic standby rules

[gsking]

I tried this yesterday and am curious to other's experience.

I wanted to move to an earlier flight, but it was full.  I put myself on standby early in the day and there were 4 of us and no seats.  I was top of the list.

I checked in later and there were 3 empty seats and still 4 of us on standby.

I cancelled standby and moved to the earlier flight.

I assumed that any open seat would be filled ASAP.   It would avoid me from having to manually look for open seats, but it didn't seem to do that.

Anyone have a clue how it's supposed to work?  Not much point being on standby if open seats can be taken manually.  

TIA

[dfwskier]

I’m not sure of the exact procedure, but it seems that if there are only a few open seats available, then they are not assigned to standbys until the hour (or less) before flight time. If there are lots of seats available, then they may be handed out to standbys before then. How much earlier? I dunno.

[DancingDavidE]

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@dfwskier wrote:

I’m not sure of the exact procedure, but it seems that if there are only a few open seats available, then they are not assigned to standbys until the hour (or less) before flight time. If there are lots of seats available, then they may be handed out to standbys before then. How much earlier? I dunno.

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Agreed - they seem to be "saved" for people to make same day changes before the same day standby can have access.

I agree with @dfwskier there seems to be some instances when standby clears earlier, maybe when plenty of spots are open, also if you are in person you have a good chance to get the change made.

[gsking]

Yeah, that would seem to match the previous protocol for same day standby.

Kind of a bummer.  No advantage to bring on the standby list early, and no way to automatically be informed of open seats.  You still have to log in often and check and be the first one to grab them when they open up.