My wife (UA FA) and I non-revved out of BKK last year to Nagoya Japan in order to get back to the left (West) coast.

To be honest, it was a pain in the arse. The customer service agents gave my wife a very hard time about flying standby, even though she had the proper standby tickets purchased in advance from United.

The agents didn't give us our boarding passes until something like 20 minutes prior to departure, and we still had to get through security, which was a nightmare. I literally had to push my way through the lines to get to the gate barely a few minutes before the scheduled departure. Naturally, the flight departed late.