I run an Internet business that buys a lot of advertising on Google Adwords. In the previous years it was buying $20 to $30k a month USD, and in more recent years it's buying around $100k a month USD. All via credit card that lets me exchange my reward points for miles. Since this is a profit making venture, the miles are essentially a free fringe benefit.

I have around 700k Asia Miles (and I have more unclaimed miles I didn't convert yet), and I was hoping this would mean I could fly first class and business class for free. But after browsing these fine forums for a bit, I'm disappointed to discover that actually that's not how this works. Instead it's more like a lucky draw and you get the first class / business class seats at the very last minute.

To make things worse, I'd always need at least 2 biz class or 2 first class tickets since I'd be traveling with my wife.

My wife and I's ten year anniversary is coming up, we'd like to fly to Amsterdam in first class or business class for our second honeymoon. But since we need to book hotels in advance, taking a gamble on first class or business class makes me nervous since there's no guarantee we'd get them. Plus the chances are even more slim because I'd need two tickets, not just one.

Does anyone have any insight on this whole thing? If tickets are really issued last minute, doesn't it force you to book your hotels last minute too?

I'd like to buy the tickets sometime between April and July. I'm pretty flexible on the time, but I need decent enough notice when I'm awarded the two tickets so that I can book hotels. We're going to be going to several different EU countries, which means booking multiple hotels.

I greatly appreciate the help. As you can tell, I'm a complete and utter newb. For a while I thought a companion ticket is something you can get if you're awarded a standard award ticket, but it turns out that is not the case at all and indeed it's only if you buy a regular ticket first.