Laravel login bypass clears Session on first redirect

Here's my issue. When I use the login form to login, my user is able to navigate within the application with no issues with a saved session.

What I'm trying to do is create a different path to login without credentials. For example, going to /login_for_mike, I store a session with the username (bypassing any login) and then redirect them to the homepage.

The odd part is, on that redirect the session is clear and kicks me out of the application.

Now if I go back to /login_for_mike a second time. It seems the session has been created and I'm good.

Something on that first redirect is not carrying over my session and after the fact, it creates a new session and then it persists.

Is there something I'm missing, or something that Laravel is skipping the first time when I hit that open route?

via Chebli Mohamed