Do cancelled award seats always immediately return to the inventory?

[ronlon]

Hi, I have previously noticed when cancelling award seats that were for QF and partner airlines, the seats returned to the inventory immediately for someone else to grab. Is this always the case? I have some pending international cancellations and if others were interested in the seats/flights/dates I could synchronise the cancellation with someone who would book the seats.

 

[dylarr]

It’s definitely hit and miss. There are plenty of instances where the reward seats have not gone back into inventory for me. However great idea to try and find someone to sync with if there’s a chance they could benefit from the seats if they do go back!

 

[ChrisMars]

Sounds like a great idea, I like it.
Could be worth having a dedicated thread imho.

 

[ronlon]

Sounds like a great idea, I like it.
Could be worth having a dedicated thread imho.

Yes I am surprised no one has created a dedicated thread before. I guess with the covid fly flexible policy myself and others have taken advantage of no penalty to cancel, hence have back up flights/multiple options. It will all come to an end though. Does anyone see any negative issues with QF in announcing a cancellation in a public way ?

 

[RichardMEL]

No. They do not always return to reward inventory. It depends on the specific rules/conditions YM have set for each specific flight at the time of the cancel. As an obvious example say your flight is down to zero J seats for sale and someone cancels a J reward seat, it's almost certainly not going to go into U, but back into J inventory because they will want to try and sell that seat. OTOH, a flight with wide open inventory would probably return to reward inventory. My understanding from conversations with YM people at various airlines over the years is that these allocation rules can change for each flight sector/route etc depending on date and of course have constraints depending on the state of the flight in question.

So while it might often be observed the return to the same inventory from whence it came I would, in no way, guarantee this to be an absolute given or to be expected.

 

[RealtimeY]

In my experience, QF J and Y seats I've cancelled have released almost instantly.

I actually cancelled a booking on MH just then and it didn't come back.

 

[DC3]

Hi, I have previously noticed when cancelling award seats that were for QF and partner airlines, the seats returned to the inventory immediately for someone else to grab. Is this always the case? I have some pending international cancellations and if others were interested in the seats/flights/dates I could synchronise the cancellation with someone who would book the seats.

There’s never any certainty that the seats will always be returned as award inventory.

From time to time, AFFers have posted about their pending cancellations to give others a heads up. Very considerate of them.