XC and XF have greater availability than most flyers realize. You need to know where to look. I just booked some friends from SFO to Europe in C for this summer and will be booking their return in a couple of weeks time as well. These are 5 persons who want to be on the same flights! It can be done. For just one or two persons, it is much easier.

Some quick tips:
- Non-stops XC availability from the West Coast to Europe are held back by all airlines. (Most likely to find XF availability). The easiest run to get space on last year was LH out of PDX. That flight got canceled for this year, though. Try the LH flight from SEA. SEA is not on the route to Australia and New Zealand on *A, so the award availability is better.
- Look at non-US airlines that fly to cities that are not *A hubs. For instance, there is tons of availability from DTW to Europe on LH, if you can somehow manage to get there. Consider DFW as well. There is also more award availability from airports on the East coast and Mid-west (this includes Canada too).
- The problem is not necessarily getting over the Atlantic, it will be getting from West coast to East coast. This is where US airways can be your friend. They do not open up a lot of XY availability, but they tend to have a fair amount of domestic XF (which you can book when traveling on an international XC).
- Look at the other *A airlines, not just United. Ethiopian will be joining in time for this summer and they fly to FCO, from which you can connect onwards.
- Once you are in Europe, there is generally pretty good domestic award availability, because most people would not consider wasting points on short flights, and the way the European award flights work with all their taxes and surcharges, it is often just as cheap to buy a ticket as to get an award, in many cases.