Advice Please - Reward Flight Cancelled

Hi all

I'd be grateful if anybody can advise me here.. we had return Upper Class tickets booked to Antigua this month, miles upgrades from Economy.

Inbound leg has just been cancelled.

Just spoken to VS on the phone (only 25 mins wait!) but they tell me they can only rebook on dates that already have reward availability.

This isn't what I was expecting - can anybody advise me on this?

Thanks

Where VS cancels the availability (or not) of a reward seat should not be a factor in rebooking. You have a ticket and they are required to rebook you under EU261

Where you want to change the date then there does need to be reward availability.

thanks tontybear - that's what I thought.
I've spoken to two agents at VS contact centre now, they both are certain they're unable to do so. I'm pretty surprised neither of them had come across a similar challenge before.
I've escalated to customer care but a bit concerned it will take them forever to get back to me and we actually want to travel fairly soon!
I've picked out the relevant bits of EC261 and found a CAA document that offers some interpretation.
We'll see what happens.