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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.
Miles, this is really helpful. Is it possible to do this on an Award Ticket if it has E availability or does there need to be award space available on the flight you want to switch to?
Hey Rob – glad to help. Award tickets can be changed without fee and You’re correct, in order to change an award ticket there needs to be space avail in the same qualifying award category. If you’ve booked a saaver ticket from Dfw-lax there must be a new saaver ticket from dfw-lax avail that fits your desired criteria; however, with an award ticket you can change your routing: so dfw-lax could change to dfw-phx-lax as long as saaver space is avail. This differs from same-day changes where routing must stay consistent.
Hi Miles, this is really helpful thank you. If I didn’t book with awards originally, can I still use my miles ive earned to pay for the change fee?
Hey Shannon – Happy to help! Unfortunately you can’t use Miles to pay for the change fee.
Hi Miles,
I use this feature often, however, if I choose same day confirm I can’t figure out how to get on the upgrade list. It seems that by choosing same day confirm I am forfeiting any chance at a better seat. Do you know any way around this?
Christina – Depends on your status. If you’re using 500s like I was doing last year when I was Platinum then when you change flights you’ll have to request the upgrade again. I mainly used the feature to fly same-day standby, but if I did confirm and pay the $75, I would have to have a rep add me to the list. If they couldn’t do it, then it had to be done at the airport. Either way, you should be put on the list. As an Exec Plat or a Plat Pro you should be automatically added to upgrade list. This has happened to me a couple times this year and I never had to do anything extra and my upgrade cleared before I arrived at the airport. Thanks for reading!
Hi Miles, thank you for this article! If the search on ExpertFlyer shows zero class E seats available, does that mean that I won’t be able to standby for that flight? Or, is it just less likely there will be seats available?
Amanda – Thanks for reading! The “E” class availability only reflects the number seats available that you can confirm a change and get a new ticket, but you can still elect to fly standby. I would check the seat maps of the flight you that you’re looking to try and switch into, the more open seats the better, and remember that “E” changes a lot in those 24 hours prior to your flight.
I’m so confused. I’m platinum status flying from lax to Mia on August 14th- I want to leave earlier so I want to take the 12:30am flight. Can I confirm it in advance free? And what’s the best way to get upgraded once I get on the new flight?
Hey Ana – A same-day flight change can only be done within 24 hours of flying. If it’s possible you’ll see the options for changing start to appear when you open your reservation within the 24 hour window. For Platinums, there isn’t a way to confirm a change without paying a $75 fee; however, you can fly standby free of charge. In terms of getting an upgrade, you’d need to confirm a change in order to be eligible. LAX-MIA is VERY difficult to get upgraded with 500 mile upgrades, although I was able to clear on a 77W last year, but that’s the exception to the rule – I’d keep an eye on space in the forward cabin – CK, EP, and PPs will get upgraded head of you and you’ll start seeing the cabin fill up 100 hours out, and once it gets to Plats getting upgraded it’ll come down to how much money you’ve spent then when you booked your ticket.
If you want to change your flight between now and 24 hours ahead of your flight, the only option ( without a schedule change) is to pay the difference in fare and a change fee.
Hey Miles–I use the same day flight change often, but appreciate the additional details you included here. My question relates to changing a standby selection. Once I select a standby flight, is there a way to cancel it and get on another standby flight instead?
Use case is…I selected a flight at 1pm since it looked to have the most available seats. However, I have since been bumped from first on standby down to sixth, so unlikely to get on board. I would like to just cancel that 1pm standby and attempt a standby at 230 or 430 instead. It looks like you only get one chance at the standby?
Jared – You can change it by calling in, but The standby list rolls over and is done by priority. So anyone that is ahead of you on the earlier flight will get pushed and be ahead of you on the later flight as well. All things equal, if you rollover from the earlier flight you will be prioritized ahead of someone who is starts their standby on the later flight. Up to you and whether you want to wait at the airport…
I think you have one but wrong here. According to AA you can begin the search 24 hours before the NEW flight time not the existing flight time.
From T&C
Same-day flight changes may be confirmed up to 24 hours prior to the new flight time.
That is correct – from the time of the new flight. Thanks for bringing to my attention – not sure why it wasn’t stated as such
So if there are no confirmed flights available and I do stand-by, do I have to wait at the airport the whole time? Currently my flight doesn’t leave until 4:55. There is an earlier flight that leaves at 1:00pm. So does that mean that I have to be at the airport at 11:00am to see if I can get a flight?
Ellen – if you want to be put on 1pm list you can do so over the phone, or online, but you’d need to be there if it clears, if it doesn’t, you’d be pushed the next chronological flight’s standby list.
One more question, please. I booked a flight to JFK, and mistakenly booked 10pm instead of 10am. If I opt for standby, do I automatically lose my original booking, and just hope and pray that I get on another flight that day? From my understanding, to do a same-day change to JFK is $150, and I don’t want to pay that.
Lisa – nope you keep your original booking, and the fee you pay will be refunded if you don’t clear the standby list.