I'm a long-time Aadvantage member. In the past, I've always requested award travel well in advance and always landed tickets within a day or two of my desired dates. Most of my requests have not been for peak routes or times, however.

In early June, my partner and I decided to go from DC to Hawaii mid-summer. I expected it would be hard to get two first/business class seats to a peak market at a peak time on such short notice. And, as I expected, the best American could do (after talking with three representatives in all) was outbound in late August. They told me coach for around my preferred dates would have been no problem, but I wanted more leg room for such a long flight.

I always figured American had the best award availability of all the majors, because they always come out on top of those surveys of actual awards granted. However, I did have a bunch of Diners Club and Starwood points available, so I thought it couldn't hurt to go shopping with other lines for availability.

Delta, where people always gripe about award availability, had seats in late July. They would have required two connections, though.

United, suprisingly, had business class seats on the exact mid-July dates I first requested. The availability on those date wasn't a fluke, either; when I later asked to move the dates back by a week (twice!), they were able to do it both times. In contrast to American, the agent said coach was booked until December, and first (on 3-class planes) was also tight.

I take a couple of lessons from this, one obvious, one not so.

First, it's great to have a big chunk of miles in transferable programs, like Diners and Starwood. This allows maximum flexibility in obtaining awards to sought-after locations.

Second, the award statistics don't tell the whole story. Don't be afraid to try for award tickets, even to a popular destination, on short notice -- they might well be available! Try different classes of service on different airlines. There were obviously drastic differences in available seat inventory among the three airlines I tried, but they didn't match up with the expectations I had from the statistics and from anecdotes posted on this board.

Charlie