I'm having real problems, I upgraded my wife and daughter SFO-LAX and then when I try to do it it says there is no more upgrades allowed. I hadn't checked the likes of expertflyer before but looking now there doesn't seem to be more than one or two available around the date I want. Really frustrating as I can see that Business Class is barely a quarter full and they're still offering the full business reward option (i.e. not upgrade).

After lengthy discussions with Skywards about this, I was assured that they will release more upgrade seats nearer the time but couldn't give me a timescale nor would they waitlist - it's apparently for the Gold customer to keep phoning and hope I'm lucky enough to get timings right.

Having spent ages on the phone to 4 different operators to try this, my only conclusion would be that Emirates have changed all the logarithms for pricing and seat release this year and Skywards haven't really got a clue what's happening.