West Coast seems to have been tricky this year...

If you really feel that you have to go Club I would wait for a sale and pay for it. However at GBP 2k plus per passenger, even in a sale, that is a big chunk of change.

If you are happy to go in WT+ and see travel in Club as a bonus then I would do the following:

* in the next couple of months (i.e. between now and the post-Christmas sale) I would monitor CW redemption availability on every flight between now and January
* set up a spreadsheet to do this - departure date along the top and booking date along the side, one table per flight number
* collect data for a couple of months and see if there are any dates/flights that become consistently available close to departure
* book the flights that have the best odds of becoming available for CW upgrade close to departure.

Tip: do the search for pure redemption availability (not upgrade) and do it on a one-way basis only.

I have been following this method for a little while now on a flight that interests me ... the results are fascinating and I might publish them here on FT soon!...