huh?

I mean, I’ll admit I haven’t tried in many, many years, but in the old days, used to standby with bags all the time domestically, and also from Canada.

domestically, bags go on the first flight, yes. From Canada, they used to tag for the confirmed flight, and then they would add a special standby tag to the checked bag, that looks not a whole lot different than the priority tag they put on premier checked bags. If you cleared the flight as a standby, they’d call down to the bag room to have that bag added to the flight you cleared. They’d need to use this process as unlike domestic, they have the PPBM requirement.

also, I can’t recall a time where my bag hasn’t made the standby flight, whether I did or not, though I suppose if weight/balance required losing something, the standby bag would make sense to go first. I’ve also had other times where flying a normal connection, I’ve had bags make an earlier connection than I have - sometimes even when the reason I couldn’t book the earlier connection was because it was below MCT. Pretty sure this has also happened for nonstops [domestically] when I’ve checked bags at the airport and there is another nonstop flight before mine - suspect they would rather prioritize getting to the destination on next flight rather than having the bag sitting around a bag room at origin.

On another note, for me personally, the reason I haven’t done standby in several years is because it’s easier/more efficient to use confirmed SDC - not a lot of point in hanging around hoping to win the standby lottery vs. confirming in advance, even if it’s not my first choice of flight. YMMV, I guess.