I'm curious as to how most people prefer to book award tickets and how they see inventory go up and down.
I understand it varies from person to person, planning ahead or not, how flexible you can be etc etc.

Basically, I'm interested in understanding when most people book award tickets. I've been looking over inventory for a number of routes recently, with a number of miles programs.

I think I'm in a middle ground which seems low on inventory - looking now for a trip end of Dec 2012 to either South Asia, EZE or NBO/JNB/DAR.
It seems if you book early, close to one year out for example, inventory is available, conversely, if you book two weeks out inventory seems to open up again - two weeks seems to be cutting it pretty fine, hotel availability is usually more limited.

Am I right in this conclusion? Or does *A/OW open up sporadically day to day?