AFAIK when the push the button doesn’t matter. The machine knows who’s QLA for sign in and will assign accordingly. The person might not get notified immediately. Case in point, I’ve gotten early trips on the 0300 RAP the night prior. No one was immediately contactable for the trip but the assignment still went out.

I’d buy that CS will delay pushing the button to preserve inter-day options. Like if a trip pops up in the middle of the night with a 0900 sign-in, but the next QLA pilots are 0300/0500 RAPs. I could see them delaying the run until closer to 0700 in case an earlier trip pops up. But I don’t think there’s a mechanism for CS to bypass a pilot higher up the assignment order. I don’t think they’re capable of the 4D chess required to project out later in the week.

I’m not Team CS, sometimes it’s not readily apparent why you did/did not get assigned trip, but 90% of the time it’s because a lineholder picked it up or someone senior to you got awarded (either Pass All or the trip itself).