Winter Reward Flights Disappearing?

Hi everyone, I have been a lurker for a while since I started flying with Virgin more consistently but a first-time poster.

I was keeping an eye on VS MAN-MCO flights as my annual pass for Universal runs out in February so I was hoping to get over in the winter. I checked last week and saw that they'd dropped the UC points for the reward seats right down over winter, 29,000 for huge chunks of January and February as well as into March both outbound and inbound. I've checked again today and there are now zero reward flights (bar one for Jan) throughout the entire of Jan, Feb and Mar in any class. Am I missing something? Just naive? There are still plenty of 29,000(ish) reward seats for UC throughout Nov and Dec. I tried chatting with Virgin on live chat and was just told "these are busy flights" but it seems odd that they would just all disappear from Jan 1st after still showing right now through Dec 31st?

I was hoping somebody could share any insight as to whether I've just missed the boat or whether there are some changes going on on Virgin's and the reward flights may come back? Thanks in advance!

[mitchja]

Welcome to V:Flyer

Are you looking at just the reward seat checker or actually trying the booking engine?

Many including myself have found the reward seat checker is not particularly accurate as it seems to lag behind the booking engine by several hours sometimes.

Looks like they have gone. Plenty still avail into LHR if you’re willing.

Welcome to V:Flyer

Are you looking at just the reward seat checker or actually trying the booking engine?

Many including myself have found the reward seat checker is not particularly accurate as it seems to lag behind the booking engine by several hours sometimes.

I had been using both, I used the checker to get an overview and then found the flights I wanted (at their points price) on the engine. I had them open the night before, went to contact my dog boarder for my dogs the next day and they had gone. I just found it odd that pretty much the entire of January and February disappeared overnight on the 31st Jul while November and December have still have plenty of availability!

I thought under VS new points system every flight would always have points seats available unless they had sold the entire flight out which is unlikely for Jan/Feb/Mar?

[mitchja]

I thought under VS new points system every flight would always have points seats available unless they had sold the entire flight out which is unlikely for Jan/Feb/Mar?

They are, however, airlines often don’t release all their fare inventory in one go for every flight. Also VS will likely be blocking fares/seats for V Hols bookings, especially on routes like MCO.