8am release for reward seats ?

I've been lurking on the VA site for a couple of months now, trying to establish the pattern for releasing reward seats in August for MAN - MCO as I will want to book in 2015 for 2016.

Seats for the outbound journey showed up at pretty much the same time as the seats themselves were released (PE only but this is OK), but return seats for anytime after 20th August have never showed up.

I called the Flying Club the other day with a query about my miles, and asked about is/when/whether these seats would be released. The person who I spoke to said that they would have been released when the seats were but must have gone very quickly. He said that they are released at 8am and I should check then, but I have been going on at all different times, including (I am sure) very close to 8am and never seen any.

He couldn't actually confirm that they had been released yet, but does this sound right, as I'd read elsewhere on this forum that the busiest route reward seats weren't released at the same time as the paid for ones?

I believe it's a problem for which there is no discernible answer, you might as well sprinkle fairy dust and say white rabbit 3 times!

Sorry to be flippant, but the accepted wisdom is that the revenue department controls the release of reward seats based on numerous untold factors, and not even an FC agent can determine when and how many will be released, or if any for a particular route will be.

People post on here about finding reward seats outbound and return for MCO, so it does happen.

Every time someone thinks they have worked out a pattern for the release of reward seats for an airline it appears that the airline changes the system.

There really is no pattern for when they are released. it depends on the destination and the time of year. If an airline knows that a big event is taking place on X dates in Y city or it is a popular route (MCO in school holidays for example) then they are not going to release any reward flights as they think they can get cash for the seats. If demand is lower than expected then they will at a later date.

The 8 am time slot is only for seat selection.
When I did my booking for next year there was a definite pattern on the outbound seats in Upper which were released on a daily basis just over a month after the seats were first released. The return leg was all over the place with seats popping up and disappearing all around the date I wanted but never on it. In the end we added a day to the holiday and snapped up what was on offer.
Best of luck
I was checking about four times a day. When I did upgrade the outbound leg it was at 6 a.m.
Best of luck.
Dick D

[honey lamb]

I've found that it is necessary to check several times during the day as reward seats can be released intermittently throughout the day. I've been successful when getting up at 6.30am and nabbing an upgrade that has appeared overnight; I've seen them appear in mid-morning, only to lose them because I wasn't quick enough while waiting for others to come back to see if the dates were successful; my last success was a reward seat that I got when it appeared somewhere between 1pm and 3pm one afternoon.

The moral of the story? Keep checking.

PS. For the uninitiated - reward seats and upgrades come from the same bucket. If it appears, it's available for either a full reward or an upgrade.

FWIW, we're due to fly back from EWR to LHR next Monday night. We've been holding S class PE tickets since last January and have checked online at least twice a day since then and phoned frequently in the last couple of months looking for miles upgrades.

Nothing today as usual but the FC man said he thought we might be lucky in the next few days. Not that many days left!

The checking can become a bit of an obsession. I speak from personal experience

As everyone has said keep checking as they get released at various times. Then of course there is the time when they aren't even showing online and the outbound team call you to offer the upgrade as happened with me for my return from ORD recently

Cheers everyone, I will keep checking, and yes - it is becoming an obsession!

FWIW, we're due to fly back from EWR to LHR next Monday night. We've been holding S class PE tickets since last January and have checked online at least twice a day since then and phoned frequently in the last couple of months looking for miles upgrades.

Nothing today as usual but the FC man said he thought we might be lucky in the next few days. Not that many days left!

And hooray, we've got them. Phone call from FC this morning - FC man said oops sorry when daughter-in-law answering the phone from bed pointed out that it was 0600 over here in NJ - but we have our UC seats. Can't sit together, FC offered 8A and 8K but I've since changed these to 2A and 6A.

Smiles all round.

Good result Whiterose