I was flying standby from DCA -> ORD -> PDX last Thursday, and I encountered an odd situation.

When I got to ORD, I was on standby for the 5:30 departure. My seat on the 8:30 was confirmed. As I stood at the gate, I saw 15 people waiting on standby and 16 seats open. Great, I thought, I'll get home 3 hours early. I also saw 6 seats still open in first. Could it be possible?

Unfortunately, first class checked in full (I presume first was filled out with automatic upgrades), then standbys were processed, and I got on the flight.

What surprises me, however, is what happened next. It was clear that four first class passengers had not shown up. I mentioned to the flight attendant that I was a 1K with 250k miles in my account, and I'd normally have been upgraded to one of those seats. Her response was that the gate agent gave her a list of four additional upgrades, and that she'd already informed those people. They moved up about 20 minutes after takeoff.

Now perhaps I just fly too much, but when the four folks moved up, I was pretty sure they were not Global Service or 1K. We just have this sort of harried traveler look, and the four elderly leisure travelers sure didn't have that look.

I emailed the 1K desk to ask if the four upgrades were, in fact, Global Services or 1K's with higher mileage balances than my own, and the response showed that the person hadn't really understood the situation at all ("We are sorry that there were not enough 1st class seats to upgrade you...we process all upgrades prior to standbys...")

Am I missing something here? I assume once my standby is processed and I am assigned a seat, I am a "normal" passenger and I am on the upgrade list along with everyone else. And if, at time of boarding, four seats in first suddenly become available, the regular priority list is in force.

I followed up to the 1K desk a second time. I don't want to be a jerk about this, but I think the gate agent just made it up as he went along.