I'm flying this coming Thursday OAK - JFK.

I was originally booked for the 11 AM flight, but decided I needed to leave earlier and paid the $43 for the 9 AM flight.

Now, of course, it's looking like I need to arrive in New York even earlier than that. There are still seats on the 7 AM flight available.

I refuse to pay a flight change fee again. My question:

what are the chances the nice people at JetBlue will allow me to change my flight yet again without having me pay another fee?

I would of just showed up to the airport as if I was checking in for the 7AM flight because theres no fee to go standby on the day of your flight. The only thing is you have to inform jetBlue that you want to go standby on another flight before your original departure time. Or you can just call up jetBlue and tell them you want them to not charge you a change fee and see what they say...

Call reservations and have them list you as standby for the earlier charge, there will be no fee. If you need to be confirmed on that flight, you will need to pay the difference in fare.

Just wanted to give my experience when standing by for Jetblue this past weekend. The flight was booked solid, but I was relying on the fact that they don't oversell to improve my chances.

On Jetblue you are supposed to call to get on the standby list. You can do it at least one day in advance, possibly earlier. I'm not sure exactly what that list does, since Jetblue still relies on the order of arrival at check-in to determine standby order.

I called reservations and confirmed that the flight was sold out. She told me that they still do not do not oversell flights (I don't know why, since it would seem to be an advantage to oversell by a few seats). I asked if they regularly have no shows, and she told me that they often have a few, but less than most airlines (the fewer number of connecting flights probably causes this). The flight I wanted was very early in the morning, so I assumed there would be a few who overslept.

One difference with standby on Jetblue is that if you have the first flight of the day, but only the first flight, you are allowed to standby for the last flight of the night before. That could really come in handy, but it only applies to the first flight and last flight.

Turns out, about 5 no-shows, and I made it on just fine. I never even said anything to the gate agent, she just had me on the list and called my name and one other standby. Someone grabbed my bag when I got on and they took it to the closest overhead bin to my seat with space. Pretty smooth process overall

PS. The TrueBlue points credited double, meaning the online booking bonus still works if you stand by for a different flight.

a little known fact that I found out as well...can be quite nice especially in the case to leave on the last flight the night before your earlym am initial flight....good stuff

The standby-day-before policy is fantastic! Thanks for mentioning it, I did not know about it.

And some people on FT keep scratching their heads about why people prefer JetBlue... (!)

Does any other airline allow standbys the night before?

I have heard disaster stories of this on some airlines with red eyes. (Booked on red-eye from west coast, but stand by on an earlier flight, after being told it would be no problem with the connection, then at the connecting city being told you had to wait until the next day because your ticket for this segment was for the next morning.)