Lots of F/C award seats USA-Australia in next few months
I've been monitoring award availability for SFO/LAX to SYD/MEL/BNE for the past few months. I've NEVER seen more than a few scattered F/C award seats available. However, in the past few days, QF has opened up tons of F/C award seats from the US to Australia and vice versa, from now until Feb. Most dates in November and December have some F/C award seats available. Some even work for Xmas travel (though not the absolute peak season dates of course). Is this normal? In the past, I haven't seen last minute award availability as being significantly better than far in advance availability.
I'm pretty happy, because I was able to switch to a non-stop flight from my preferred departure airport vs making several connections. I had booked using CO miles (back in Feb, before the rates jumped up significantly). I only regret not having been able to book an F award reward back then (b/c I couldn't find any open F award seats at all). I actually saw an F seat on the A380 flight available for my travel date, but of course I couldn't switch to that!
Anyway, this is just a heads up in case anyone has award travel planned during this time.