My wife and I are trying to plan a dream vacation to Japan spring of 2018 in hopes to catch the cherry blossom season.
We hope to ride on Singapore Airline First class from LAX to NRT and we'll most likely just book an economy flight back since we've only accumulated about 200k UR points so far.

From my research so far, it looks like Saver Award comes out to be 87,500 KrisFlyer miles per person (total of 148750 miles +$107.20 fare charges) OR standard is 170,000 miles per person, which is beyond what we can accumulate at this point.

1. I read that we can book the 355 days out. Right now, all the searches I've done for this year just to see what's available is coming up as waitlisted. How easy is it if I try to book the Saver Award flights for next year if I try to book it as soon as the dates I want open up?
2. Is the Saver Award guaranteed or is it always going to be waitlisted?
3. Any tips and tricks or suggestions to booking the flight? For example, can I call Singapore Airline and confirm that Saver Award tickets are available before transferring my UR points over and have them on hold while I go through the process?

I appreciate hearing from anyone who has successfully done this before or have any thoughts about alternative options. Thanks!