Originally Posted by KIR@GCM
... But it is true that premium award availability on QF trans-pac has always been difficult except for very last minute bookings. Regrettably, it now appears to be even more of an issue for the reasons that NM has stated as well as the number of premium seats declined in biz when the SkyBed product was introduced.
It is possible these changes will result in greater award availabily at the expense of upgrades.
Currently, when an upgrade to business class is requested, the award U class is checked. If there is any availabilty, the PAX is booked into that U class seat and the availabilty reduces. If there is no availability, the PAX can be placed upon a waitlist.
If yield management decide to realease further business award seats U class availability increases. At this point, any waitlisted upgrades (if any) are processed, reducing the award availability.
Normally, waitlisted upgrade demand exceeds supply and effectively, no business class award seats become available.
If I understand things correctly, the changes coming this month will result in those award seats actually being available for award bookings, rather than being gobbled up by upgrades.
Any upgrades will then occur subject to seat availability and "Yield Management" philosophies just before checkin.