We are leaving in a little less than 3 weeks for a long anticipated trip to Africa with my parents. As they get older they get more nervous and they are concerned that we will miss our connection in Atlanta (having had to do a sprint across the Miami airport in March to make our flightto Rio, I can understand the conren). I am trying to change the first leg of our trip, but am running into a bit of difficulty since the tickets are paper tickets booked through a travel agency in Canada (we are in Chicago). The first leg is Delat, connecting to South African Aurways. Has anyone ever tried flying stand-by on an earlier flight (I know there is plenty of room on the flights the night before) and what would that do to the rest of the itinerary? We debated buying a cheap ticket to Atlanta and just not using the first leg of our ticket, but that usually means they cancel the whole itinerary and I don't want that to happen. I'll contact the travel agent on Monday, but in the case they can't re-issue it (my parents are willing to pay the change fee), I'd like to be able to think about other options. Thanks for any advice or experience with flying stand-by. I've never done it.

Many airlines will let you just show up at the airport early and, without change fee, get on an earlier flight the same day. My husband does this frequently. However, it is not something that is guaranteed.

Two problems I see with your plan to do this. First, it is the day before - not the same day, so I do not think this will work. Second, there is never any guarantee of being able to do this, even if there are seats on the plane. If the connection is really that tight, I would pay the fee. If the connection is "legal", I doubt you will be able to make a change for free.

You are correct in that you can not just fail to show up for the first leg of the trip.

plus,

changing to a different flight may also involve paying a fare difference on top of change fee. It all depends on what fare class is available on the other flights.

Besides, changing to a different day flight could be an expensive proposition because different fare rules may apply. For example, most airlines offer cheaper fares on M, T, W and more expensive fares on the other days. You could also be breaking the fare rules with a stopover in Atlanta.

My point is, that it's not just a change fee. You may find out that it could be hundreds of $ more. On the other hand it could be just the change fee.

As <b>gail</b> said, you can't do a standby on a different day.

What is your connection time?

The connection time is 90 minutes, which conceivably should be OK, but we had a 60 minutes connection time in Miami and ended up barely making the flight. With my parents (who are in their 70's) coming in the night before from Maine, and with our experience almost missing our flight in Miami (they were also on that trip), they don't want to be sweating it all morning. Since they are willing to pay the change fee (however much it ends up being), I figure I will do whatever it takes to keep them from having a coronary prior to the start of the trip. Thanks for reminding me of the &quot;day of&quot; rule. And hopefully we won't have to pay much more than the $175 change fee. I'll find out tomorrow morning when the travel agent opens up.

My hopes were realized - all we (or I should say my dad) need to pay is the $175 change fee. Couldn't get the flight we prefered, but we got our second choice so that's not bad. I have to send the tickets to the travel agent to be reissued, but we still have plenty of time before we leave. So, all is good.

Thanks for reporting back on the outcome - have a good trip.