We were traveling from EWR to MCO a few weeks ago on the 6:35pm flight. Our schedules cleared up so we wanted to leave on the morning flight around 11am.
I called the reservations line and the phone rep said no problem, they can make a change at the checkin counter without a fee, but if they did it over the phone it would be $100 for each pax.
We head to the airport and the ticket counter agent would not let us standby for any earlier flights without a fee. If we knew that the policy is to charge a fee, we would not have even gone to the airport early.
I talked to them for nearly 30 minutes and they would not do it for us. In the mean time, my companion tried out the kiosk right next to me and was able to change the flight without any problems. He interupted my heated discussion with the supervisor and said, with a huge smile, "Thanks for being so helpful!"
As silver elites we were also able to get upgraded to f class.