I had waitlisted a segment recently but couldn't find much info here on what to expect, so I thought I'd share my experiences.

Recently, I needed to change my LONEx to fly 4 days earlier between SYD-AKL. Of course there was no 'L' inventory so I had AA waitlist me on the flight I wanted (which showed Y9/B9/L0/K0...). I requested several time for the RTW desk to email Qantas to politely request opening inventory, but to no avail.

Unfortunately, until the day of flight, there was no additional inventory available. The waitlist still showed however in checkmytrip.com, so I held out hope the airport could process the standby request if there were open seats.

On the day of flight, I got to the airport and they denied any knowledge of a waitlist and initially refused to help. Qantas was (as is typical) very rde and denied any waitlist existing. Fortunately, we were able to find a sympathetic agent (after talking to several) who noted that the waitlist as it stood was 8 long and the flight had 17 open seats, so he just went ahead and confirmed us.

I was really disappointed by Qantas's poor attitude and disinterest in rebooking us despite having a relatively light load on our desired flight. By comparison, I was in a similar situation on Cathay but they opened up 'L' at 24-hours before the flight, so I could confirm the ticket ahead of time.

Anyone else have good or bad waitlist experiences on an economy ticket? It seems to be different than AONE or DONE tickets where if you miss out, there's usually a lower-class alternative on your desired flight.