To close the loop on this... I guess we'll never know. It was my daughter traveling on the F award ticket. When she checked in at BOS and asked about standby she first was told that there was no standby on award tickets, then was told there was no standby on awards if she was not elite, then was told there were no F seats available (there were), then was told she could only stand by for coach, and finally, after she pushed back on all of these (with me on the phone), she was told she would not get on the flight anyway because there were already 5 people standing by for first (upgraders, not holders of F tickets).

Clearly the agents in front were not going to let this happen. She was going to ask at the gate, but by the time she got to the gate for the earlier flight the upgrades had been cleared and F was now full.

It was always going to be a crapshoot on a Friday afternoon, but to get stonewalled by a series of false answers (I won't say lies) certainly stinks. As my daughter said afterwards, "the Delta people in Boston are a lot nicer".