I'm surprised you couldn't be placed on a waiting list earlier... I think that feature, or the ability to be put on a list to "hold" the first available FF trip in situations similar to lQQkout's would be a nice feature of any FF plan.

I am aware of people faxing in requests, but I am uncertain how they are handled once they’re received.

Finally, if a FF seat is a non-revenue seat for passengers, I wonder where the seats come from for employee non-revenue seats? Is it from the same pool? If it is, that may explain why the Rome seats disappear so quickly... maybe it's because they're gone before they're released?