Originally Posted by george 3

What I just noticed today however is that a route that I'm particularly interested in (JFK-GRU) has quite a bit of near term inventory of 20k/30k economy including the direct flight. When you hit the 17th, you have some drips and drabs of availability including J and Y for saver with the lower miles - however to VCP, not GRU. On the return after say the 30th, the saver is available, but at the elevated "we don't have blackout periods" de-facto blackout period - 75k one way economy.

So perhaps on some routes they are easing into higher award requirements.