I will likely have to cancel an upcoming (55 days out) trip to Bali with the wife. It's unfortunate but it is what it is.

That said; will cancelling the award tickets automatically open up the space for someone else to book with Avios?

If so, I figured I may as well try to make some lemonade with said lemons and see if someone has been trying to find the seats I'm currently holding so I can coordinate with them.

Hi.

No it does not. Sorry

Regards
Tbs

I don't believe that there is any guarantee that a cancelled award ticket will go back into award inventory, unfortunately. I'm sure there have been threads about this in the past.

You definitely cannot rely on the seats being made available again.

Thanks for the quick reply.

The only time I know where it tends to work - namely cancelling an existing reservation to create space for someone else - is when the cancellation is very soon after initial booking. So it's quite common for Avios bookings to be cancelled or moved within the first 24 hours (loads of scenarios, but a lot connected with "what if" bookings, unable to get time off work, mistakes, making several bookings at -355 days just in case, GGL 72 hour holds expiring) then these do tend to come back. If it's a lightly loaded service by historical trends and some way to departure then that can also create space. But generally, it doesn't happen - and in any case you sometimes need to roll over a midnight calculation period to generate the new redemption options.

I've always wondered does the practice of avios rich members booking reward flights far in advance to hold flights they think they may want and then cancelling them at a later date for a small fee, with those seats then not being released back into reward availability have a significant impact on general reward availability especially on popular routes?
I'm not saying this is in any way wrong of people to do, they are after all just taking advantage of the system as it stands (which I would likely do also if avios rich). But should the cancellation fee be higher to minimise this practice (if it is causing low availability) or is this too much of another negative to add to the avios system?

Not that I'm suggesting the OP's case is like this I'm sure its a cancellation for more legitimate reasons.

The fee was introduced to GCH members in 2014, to much ranting expressions of concern as shown in the thread below. But it was for this reason.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...ntroduced.html

I knew the topic was surely on here somewhere just couldn't find it! Wow 87 pages worth of opinions....should probably keep mine to myself so, lest I open up that can of worms again.

Two weeks ago I had the experience of releasing two seats (as part of a, "cancel and rebook," scenario) and the seats were automatically assigned to a much higher fare bucket.