Just out of interest....
Never had aproblem with long haul trips, but...
A couple of years ago a now renamed Channel Island hopping company made a slight 'error' at check in and booked me in as some one else with a similar name,(I know I stupidly didn't check the boarding card details!), and then also booked the actual named passenger in as well. By the time this was discovered we were both on board trying for the same seat, unfortuantely the standby pax were also on board! No problem, I explained to the FA that I was a CPL, with licence to hand and to save bumping the other pax I would happily take the one of the crew or jumpseats. This was met with looks of sheer horror and refusual even to consult with the skipper and some poor standby pax was offloaded to wait another 6 hours for his / her flight. On contacting the airline later for explanation as concerned about immigration / special branch problems being as I was never actually checked in, (flt ex Channel Islands), they could not give any explanation other than the fact that 1 extra pax and luggage would have put the a/c over MTOW. Hmmm. Are they really flying that near to the w & b max?