I flew home from Las Vegas on Tuesday and needed to get back a bit earlier than my ticketed flight. Having absolutely no idea what Southwest’s standby policy was, I looked it up online before heading to the airport. As I was on a Wanna Get Away fare, standby required a buy-up to the Anytime fare – a difference of $85 in my case.

The crappy thing is that if you don’t make it on the flight, you’re still charged the fee, something rather unappealing. But since it was a Tuesday (off-peak travel day) and most people were arriving in Vegas for CES, I figured I’d have a damn good chance so I headed to the airport.

When I looked up the Anytime fare, I noticed the Business Select fare was a mere $15 more for the one-way to Reno. When I arrived at the airport, I asked instead to purchase a new ticket at the Business Select fare using the value on my original ticket as partial form of payment. And so $100 later, I had a confirmed seat – and a boarding group of A3 – for an earlier flight. Well worth the price for my need to get home four hours earlier.

The fare difference between the Wanna Get Away and Anytime fare was pretty negligible, all things considered, for the route I was flying. In some longer-distance markets, I’m sure it’s a considerable jump and it would make loyal flying on Southwest less likely if I were prone to frequently wanting standby travel having purchased the cheapest fares.

But what’s most shocking to me is they don’t provide a better standby policy for their most frequent fliers, A-List and A-List Preferred Rapid Rewards members. Maybe I’m just used to legacy airline programs and their liberal, by comparison, standby policies. Why wouldn’t Southwest throw elites a bone and allow standby on all fares? Am I missing something, or is their standby policy a bit off-putting to loyal travelers who buy the cheapest tickets?

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I mentioned in a recent Mileage Run Opportunity post that I frequently take advantage of United’s same-day change options to ward off tight connections at downline airports. I normally like to buffer in more than an hour on complex routings, but sometimes to get the best fare, a tight connection is all that’s available at the time of booking.

During the next several weeks, I have many itineraries with three segments on a single day and since I haven’t needed a same-day change in a while, I had to refresh myself with United’s policies. Here’s the official page detailing the process.

Confirmed same-day change:

If an H-class (or higher) seat is available on an earlier flight that departs within the next three hours, you may confirm a seat on that flight. It needs to be an identical routing if traveling nonstop to your destination, or if a connection is involved, you can change the connection city.

I’ve always done this via phone or at the airport, but the option is also available online within your reservation by using the “Change reservation” link. Just make sure you haven’t checked-in yet, and if you have, cancel your check-in and then return to the reservation to process the change. One caveat is for changing connection cities… that can only be done at the airport.

I generally use United’s Expert Mode availability to see the fare buckets online, or if I’m at the airport, I’ll use the mobile version of ExpertFlyer. Here’s the current fee structure based on Mileage Plus or OnePass status:

Image courtesy United Airlines

If the flight on which you wish to change isn’t available, standby is always an option, particularly if you’re confirmed on a much later flight in the day and the three-hour restriction doesn’t fit your schedule.

Unconfirmed same-day standby:

You can be added to the standby list on any earlier flight on the same day of travel on an identical routing. Unlike the confirmed same-day change that is valid only on flights within the U.S., the standby option includes flights to Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Canada.

Standby requests can be done online or at the airport with an agent or at a kiosk. The same fee schedule applies as the confirmed change option.

Image courtesy United Airlines

Keep these benefits in mind whether mileage running or not – they come in very handy and both have enabled me to maintain the integrity of my itineraries. Also, I’ve been able to confirm a change onto a flight later than the three-hour restriction, but your mileage may vary, as always. It never hurts to ask, particularly at the airport.