WN's "pay to upgrade" policy is easy to understand, and I agree that helps meet load/revenue goals by allowing them to charge more for more popular flight times and discount later flights.

What I do feel can be improved, is that if WN gets the passenger to their connecting city early enough to make an earlier connection to their final destionation, without checked bags, and with A/A+ status, there should be an internal policy, upon request only, to allow free standby on to that earlier flight.

In other words, "thanks for agreeing to a 3hr connection but we don't need all 3 hours of your time today."

I'm writing this morning from BWI, where I'll be for 2 hours because I didn't agree to pay $168x2 to upgrade. I bought the only (published) connection that their website allowed me to buy. The earlier flight went out with no C group at all.