carrington1

I've been trying to book a WTP upgrade with avios to club world, JFK to LHR for September. There has and continues to be about zero availability. Does it hurt to check numerous times a day? Does it somehow trigger no results? Or am I paranoid?

mikeyfly

Haha paranoid yes! It will or it won't become available - there's no evidence to suggest you're harming op yourself chances

corporate-wage-slave

I'm not a doctor, but yes, probably.

You need to be checking not the upgrade area of MMB, but do a dummy booking for CW. Your best chance is in the 4 days or so before travel, even on the day of travel (so you may want to hang off OLCI). Availability is released once a day only at about 01:00 hrs BST or a bit before or after. Checking multiple times a day doesn't get really help, though it may improve your keyboard skills I suppose. Beyond that, attributing excess intelligence to BA's IT is considered somewhat eccentric around these parts.

stifle

It won't reduce your chances of getting availability, if that's what you mean.

mikeyfly

I hate to dispute a cws fact but I have had availability open up tea time on two occasions in F to the Far East. This was unexpected and a great result

corporate-wage-slave

In the last few years, that would only happen if there was a BA IT glitch which delayed the Redemption updates. The update is definitely only once a day, and it's programmed for 00:00 GMT.

mikeyfly

Interesting thanks for the clarification, if it makes a difference, it was KUL and both times were whilst the route was still new..

contractor

Maybe that was someone else releasing a prior booking?

carrington1

Thanks to everyone for not flaming my paranoia!!!!!

corporate-wage-slave

No, if an Avios booking is released it doesn't go straight to the pool, however after the next midnight recalculation there is an extra strong chance of it being added to availability, particularly a long time out.

Globalist

I have been checking daily at 9am Singapore time for a WTP to Club upgrade SIN-LHR for about a month so no issue there.

Last Tuesday I checked again in the afternoon and suddenly found 2 seats on my flight. I did not expect the seats actually as I seen CWS his message before that it is released once a day.. but was happy to find it

To the OP, keep checking, I don't think BA has an algorytm that blocks release on flights that have been checked a lot.

Globalist

flyingmonkie

Depending on how much you value your time I use the pro version of Expert Flyer to set up alerts (usually SIN-SYD overnight from WTP to CW) and then don't worry about it...

prof

I thought that expert flyer doesn't show award availability for BA?

xenole

I've had times when I've been checking for days and nothing.
Then check at say lunchtime and still nothing. Randomly look a couple of hours later and F has opened up on every flight that day or seats have appeared on the one specific flight that day you wanted.

Had one flight yesterday morning that had 5 reward seats. Popped out and then went to book one an hour and a half later and all gone. This morning the seats are back again (no mention of a number this time so possibly 9+ or whatever they decide to sell)

Used to have issues with train fares where every time you looked at something (possibly holding it), the price on any subsequent searches would increase due to reduced fare bucket availability.

Apart from that, a few searches in a day usually triggers that stupid captcha thing every time.

rossmacd

It does now, and has done for some time.