(Mods- this probably belongs to another thread...so please move unless you think it’s worth a thread of its own..)

So I got a surprise with a waitlist..A surprise from CX IT.

Yeah..them!

Sis needed 2 redemption seats exSFO in F, and one was available to partners, so she booked that with her Avios or AA miles(a), with my DM priority being the plan for the second seat(b).

Realised after waitlisting (b) that the the flight was down to F1A1, so things didn’t look too rosy.

Alternate plans made, a lazy day made for ripe opportunity to ‘experiment and see how things work when an award seat goes back to the inventory’.

Was on the phone with my sis when she cancelled her confirmed award seat (a), with a me having a browser tab each, focussed /refreshing on 1) expertflyer, 2) CX revenue F booking, 3)a new CX award booking- all for the same flight.

I’ve grown to believe the ‘waitlists are a batch run process- making for some idiosyncrasies between when someone cancels and the batch is run’.

So...imagine my surprise when 1/2/3 didn’t change (F1A1, nil award seats), but I got an SMS that my waitlist (b) had cleared- pretty much within 10-15 seconds max of her having hit cancel!