I'm a recent AA refugee. This is my first year with AS, status matched to MVPG and already re-qualified for next year. By the end of the year I expect to make 75K and hope to have a cache of approximately 450K miles saved up to plan a big trip. I'm considering either South America (Argentina and Chile) or South Pacific (Bora Bora and NZ). India is on my list as well, but maybe for another time. I will have 130K with AA, 200K with AS, and 120K from Marriott with a destination FF plan TBD. Let's assume those miles from Marriott will go into one of the two programs.

I don't need help searching for availability. That's a well traveled path I've frequented in the past and know how to do the dirty work of finding ideal flights and value for my miles. My questions are more about the timing and execution of making reservations. My past experience has been almost exclusively with AA, so bear with me. Does the AS availability window open up around 330 days out? Do I need to spoon feed the agent flights and dates? Do 75K have access to additional inventory others don't (i.e., like AA EXP)? Beside BA, are there other partners who tack on the extortion fee...err...I mean fuel surcharge? Is it better to book one-way tickets vs. round trip? Even if it's multi-point? I think most of my other questions, the answers can be found online.

Thanks for your help.