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How to take advantage of American Airlines Same-Day Flight Change
We’ve all been there…something has come up and you NEED to take a later flight or an earlier flight. American has a rule that many people over look, and here’s the ins and outs around how to take advantage of American Airlines Same-Day Change and Standby Rule. Note…if you are on a Basic Economy ticket…this does not apply to you. It’s also worth noting that anyone can fly standby on flights that depart earlier than the flight they’ve booked, but only elite members can go standby on flights that depart after their booked flight.
It’s free for these fliers!
- American Airlines Executive Platinum Members
- American Airlines Platinum Pro members
- Unrestricted Economy ( Y fare ), Business, First, or you hold an AirPass.
I’d suspect that very few of you will be on a Y fare since these often price higher than you’d pay for a discount business or first class ticket. Additional tickets that qualify for Same Day changes are first
What are the rules?
- The flights must be Same Day
- You also need to fly through the same Airports as original flight ( if you’re flying LAX-DFW-MIA, your new flights must match that )
- Same Number of stops in the same airports ( basically what I mentioned up above )
- Be marketed and operated by American Airlines or American Eagle
- No partner airlines allowed
A few things to note:
- Any passenger can fly standby on an earlier flight
- Only Elites may fly standby on a later flight same day
- Same-day confirmed changes and standby are subject to availability on select flights
What will it cost?
It’ll cost you $75 to confirm a flight change
-
- waived for Executive Platinum members
Some fares will receive a complimentary change and standby:
Essentially, if you are
- Executive Platinum or Platinum Pro…congrats, you get changes free of charge.
- Unrestricted ticket or AirPass, you also get free changes.
- Biz/First Award tickets get free changes
You get free standby if
- AA Plat or Gold + 8 companions
- One World Emerald, Sapphire, or Ruby + 8 companions
- Active Duty Military + dependents ( must be on active orders )
When can you confirm an American Airlines Same Day flight change?
You can confirm a same day change starting 24 hours from your new flight, not 24 hours from your original flight.
This is a big thing to note. I just took advantage of this perk on a flight from NYC to LAX where I was scheduled to fly at 650pm on Thursday. I then saw upgrade space available on an earlier flight and wanted to utilize an upgrade with Business Extra. Instead of having to pay a $200 change fee and difference in price, I simply waited until after 11am on Wednesday, and then phoned in and paid the $75 change fee and had the upgrade processed at the same time. Just to be clear, I didn’t have to wait until after the 6:50pm flight to make the change, I did it at 11am the day prior.
Voila…hello lie-flat biz
Miles – do I have to call an agent? NO WAY BROSÉ – You can do it online!
When you pull up your itinerary you will be prompted like this:
When you click Same-day flight change you will be prompted again with your options to change. If there are multiple people on an itinerary you can select 1 or all. Below is a flight from a while back that I screen-capped to show how you can do it.
What if it’s more than 24 hours, how can I see if I may be able to switch?
You can use Expertflyer. If you take the same JFK-LAX parameters and search for ( E ) fare buckets and look at a future date you can see these options: I also searched for “C” inventory which you can apply Business Extra Upgrades
Search for Awards and Upgrades:
We put in our parameters and searched (E): Employee and Confirmed Flight Changes 
Then we see the results. For my situation I was looking for a flight with both E and C space, since I wanted to confirm into a flight that also had Business Class upgrade space on it as well. As I mentioned, I did this on the 11, but you can see that the 9:45pm also has this space. We would need to wait until 9:45pm in order to change that flight though.
How you can use Same-Day flight change on a last minute booking to save a lot of dough? So happy you asked! Here’s a little ditty –
If the flight that you really want has E space available on it, but is significantly more expensive ( $75+) than the flight that you don’t want ( and it’s within 24 hours of departure) you could use the confirmed same-day change or standby to snag the flight you want by paying for the flight you don’t want and then changing it via this rule. Obviously this works best with flights that are booked the day before.
Ex.
Let’s say it’s noon and you want to fly tomorrow from LA to Dallas. You want LAX-DFW at 11 am but it’s priced at $500 ( but showing E space), yet the LAX-DFW at 3:50pm is priced at $175. You could book the 3:50pm for $175. Get your confirmation, login to your flight, see an option for sameday flight change, and because it’s within 24 hours of the 11am flight, you can go ahead and confirm the change for $75. You’d end up on the flight you wanted, but instead of spending $500, you’d spend $175 + $75 or $250.
Hope this was helpful!
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.