"What goes around comes around."

When we ask AC for small favors such as letting us get on an earlier flight because we got our work done early or whatever and they deny it, then they shouldn't expect us to do anything for them in return when they wanted any help from us. The best example on FT that I remembered was I think posted by "Altaflyer", he was on a YEG-YYZ flight and it was supposed to be an A320 but they did a last minute switch to an A319, the gate agent was pleading for volunteers to "help them out". Would I have done it? Absolutely not. Not because I want to make life tough for the gate agents but because AC refused to help me out on small things such as allowing me to get on an earlier flight, then I don't see any reason why I have to help them out.

I think it's pathetic that they will pretend to be nice only when they can benefit from a particular situation. (Such as allowing a pax to go on an earlier flight if they see that their original booked flight is oversold and it'll help them open up a seat.)

None of the above explantions really make sense based on AC's current policy. If this was purely a revenue thing, they would have disallowed standby on transborder flights as well. In Feb, an UA agent at YVR was in shock after hearing the AC agent telling me that L was not good for standby, "What!? You guys don't allow standby now? Oh wow."