<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by eastwest:
No dice. 
They wanted a $100 change fee and the fare upgrade to Y. It would have cost me about $900 more. Not worth it. Maybe next time.</font>
This was to change your reservation into confirmed space on the earlier flight, not to go standby. The two are completely independent issues. If they were to let you go standby in your situation, it could be done at the airport only, and there would be no cost. But, it sounds like from the above that this will not work either.