American Airlines promotes itself as the world’s largest airline, with the most hub cities. That should be a convenience that gives customers lots of options to get where they’re going. Except American’s policies don’t allow it.
When a customer wants to standby or change to an earlier flight, they aren’t allowed to change connecting cities. That means if they are flying in or out of a small airport that has only a single flight through a given hub, they cannot make same day changes at all. They can’t change the number of segments they’re flying, or switch from a connection to a non-stop.These were all changes that were put into place when US Airways management took over, worrying that someone might save money and cost them revenue by booking a cheaper flight and changing to something more expensive. These are also policies that are out of step with competitors United and Delta.Previously only elite frequent flyers could do this, while non-status customers could pay a fee to be confirmed on an earlier flight if confirmed space was available for a same day change.
Starting this Friday, March 1 you must be an AAdvantage member to take advantage of free standby. So that’s a new restriction on standby, though of course people can join the program at the airport.
What wasn’t previously announced, though, but American is now telling customers is that they won’t be able to get added to the standby list by a customer service agent or gate agent. Standby requests will be self-serve only:
Even if you’re an elite frequent flyer with a oneworld or joint business venture airline, you’re going to need to download the American Airlines app (or use the American Airlines website) to request standby – unless you’re an American Airlines Platinum Pro or higher or oneworld emerald in which case you can still request at the gate.
This feels petty to me, but no more so than limiting same day standby and same day confirmed changes to the same connecting hubs and refusing to through-check bags on separate American Airlines tickets when spending extra to buy an American Airlines fight because award space wasn’t available for a connection to a non-oneworld partner airline.