Originally Posted by
Zzzzyi
Oh wow, so it's manually released by the airlines' staff? that's interesting. I believe I've heard that once an ANA metal award is cancelled, it will be reinstated immediately or offered to people who have waitlisted, if there's any. I guess that's only ANA then?
That's also incorrect information about ANA. Unless you cancel within, say, 24-48hrs of making the booking (in which case it's very likely to return, since very few other bookings would have been made in such a short period to affect available seats), revenue management decides how many, if any, of the seats go back into availability. It's not "manual" as in, a person checks it and hits "approve", revenue management decides - the algorithm.