If you are persistent and creative you can find awards easily especially on codeshares. You might not find what you want on Delta one month out or even one week out, but if you look at KL or AF codeshares you will be surprised. At the end of February I booked a standard J award ticket on *A to Europe leaving out of Houston and returning to Dallas. This was 9 days prior to departure. As to respect to the article, I agree that US is stingy with its seats. However I found them very easy to deal with when booking *A tickets and very generous in their mileage promotions.