I think airline revenue management has made booking awards more difficult to predict. For a current example, I'm interested in doing an ORF-JFK trip 3/14-3/25 on AA. I've checked a number of times over the last ten days, and I can't make that booking although I can go a day or two earlier or later on both ends of the trip. Just to confirm a suspicion, I checked ORF-MIA and ORF-DFW, both also nonstop flights, and each one of them had the same blackout dates.

I suspect that these dates are predicted to be good dates systemwide for cash purchases so the revenue management software has locked the dates out for awards as they may be heavy travel days with spring breakers traveling and for the latter date, Easter approaching. If the prediction is correct, then those dates will never open; if the prediction is off, then some seats on each of those flights are likely to open sometime between now and 3/14--although too late for my purposes.

A second example: I was headed to Dublin in late November on BA and wanted to use Avios to upgrade my two WT+ seats to CW seats for the TATL portion of the flight. There was no upgrade availability when I booked the seats in late October. Thirty-six hours before the flight, boom, upgrades opened up and I got my CW seats.

Several years ago, I found AA had plenty of award availability. In the past year, not so much. Again, just a theory, but I'm sure the bankruptcy proceedings/merger talks that have been going on for about a year have had some effect on award availability. Will that change as AA comes out of bankruptcy, whether merged with US or as an independent entity? Who knows?

That's the gist of the problem. It doesn't matter what we think; revenue management software makes its own assumptions and provides award seat availability accordingly. My rule: check as early as possible for award seats--and then stay flexible and keep checking.