Just an update:

I am very glad that I read the first several responses before seeing the subsequent ones as I may have been discouraged to even attempt. As you can see from my join date, I have been traveling and reading Flyertalk for awhile now.

Yes, travel can be unpredictable, but so are many aspects in lifel. Further, while unpredictable, there are observable patterns in travel--i.e., arrival time, load factors, chances for upgrades based on city pairs, etc.

Indeed, I have had elite status from all the legacy carriers previously, but only started traveling with Southwest last year and traveled enough to get A-List, so I was/am fairly limited with knowledge pertaining to WN flying experiences.

What I was looking for was to gauge the percentage of possibility of clearing standby on sold out flights, generally speaking, thus, intentionally leaving out city pairs as I don't always travel to the same city pairs. In the past, even when flights were sold out on United and American, with weather delays, etc., as a higher elite member, I often was not as impacted and would usually clear the standby, despite the challenging circumstances.

Thanks to AFAM_DFW, who shared that his/her experiences have been been generally good success as a single traveler and encouraged that I go for it. Since it appeared that we shared some similar criteria/characteristics, I felt good knowing that while a flight can be sold out, others in similar situation as I was experiencing have had success clearing standby.

I decided to drive to LAX and also called Southwest to ask about the chances of clearing standby. The agent told me that there were still two seats to be sold. But by the time I got to the airport, the gate agent informed me that the flight was completely full. I asked if there were a lot of people ahead of me on standby, and he nodded yes, but said he would put me on standby anyway. His response led me to believe that my chances were low to nil.

I went to the gate with 15 minutes prior to boarding and asked gate agent about my chances. She stated that the flight is full, but that I was the only one on standby. Not sure what the other gentlemen was responding to when I inquired previously.

As they were about to board, I was cleared before boarding even commenced. Got a much later boarding number, but I was informed to board right after all the A-listers have boarded. I was pleasantly surprised that I was cleared much faster than I expected. While I know not to always expect this to repeat, if even ever again, I will take my chances in the future with standby, even if I have been informed the flight is completely sold out/full/oversold, etc.

I am glad I saw the first few posts that shared their successes, convincing me to go for it rather than not out of fear of having low possibility. I was able to arrive earlier than planned, allowing to meet up with some other people that I would otherwise not meet had I stayed with my later flight.

As a commentary, I don't agree with the poster who stated that this is one of those instances where others' experiences matter in the least. I look at it as other people's experiences provide me with a measuring tool of the likelihood that an event will occur again, thus giving me a reference point to make a more informed decision rather than go blindly about it.

Moving forward with future Southwest travel, I plan on doing standby when the schedule fits, with the mindset of, "You win some. You lose some."

Again, thanks for sharing your standby experiences.