Originally Posted by
jamienbaker
My understanding is awards are released and waitlists cleared at slightly different times, meaning one should monitor awards in hopes of jumping the queue. Simply relying on the waitlist process is foolish on most airlines, though perhaps CX is better than most.
There were reports that this used to be true on CX. But based on recent experience, it has improved. (Strange to think they've managed to
improve anything IT-related, but there it is.) For upgrade awards where I was watching availability like a hawk, my waitlists cleared a couple weeks before departure automatically. Unless there was an extremely narrow window of opportunity, it appears those seats were never available to non-waitlisted pax.