Flying stand by - Minneapolis - TravBuddy

Well... this is my first review on TravBuddy.com. I would like to share my "expertice" on flying stand-by. Since 1999 I flew stand by on two major airlines, American Airlines and Northwest Airlines. On April 2007 I quitted Northwest Airlines and returned to my home country, Argentina.

How do you get stand by tickets? Three ways of doing that:

- Having a friend who works for an airline
- Having a significant other who is an airline employee
- Working for the airline

The first two options have restrictions on the priority lists or destinations (for instance, years ago your friends had to fly with the employee). As a boyfriend or significant other you have priority restrictions as well (meaning you get stuck in an airport in the middle of nowhere, which happens more often than everybody thinks).

The best way to fly stand by, is being an airline employee. Trust me. Flying non-rev is very stressful. Don't fly stand by when you are time constrained. The last time I flew non-rev to Buenos Aires it took me three days to get to BA from Minneapolis. I heard so many horror stories of people with families getting stuck for days that I would encourage people to think about it again when they are planning to fly places.

Now... it is worth it. I visited so many places on the weekends that I don't care all the stress I accumulated, or the time I lost on airports, or the middle seats I got or the red-eye flights I had to take. I took flights like:

- roundtrip to Las Vegas on the same day
- flying to Alaska and returning the next day
- flying to Europe for the weekend
- buying National Geographic and flying to that destination the next weekend

everything for free.

OK, here are some tips.

1. Be very patient. Not knowing whether you are flying or not can be very stressful, but people at the counter will help you. If you don't get a seat is because there is no free seat left.
2. Be courteous and polite with the gate agents. They are there to help you and they will do their best to get you on the plane. They have more information than you do. If you are rude to them, they will not only kick you out of the place but also they will kick you out of the airport and you will have to take Greyhound in order to make it to your original destination.
3. Have back up planes. Buy Zed Tickets as a backup, since you never know what might happen to your original plan (anything can happen and most things are out of your control)
4. Wait until the very last minute. You ran out of chances when they close the flight.

Hope this information helps,

Gustavo