Originally Posted by RTWonSAT

Been keeping track of last minute Cathay availability with Alaska for months now (Testing my theories and trying to book the second F for the honeymoon )

Few things I learned:
1. Subtraction system seems to be there for the J seats. (I.e BA shows 8, AS has 4) this was true for most of the routes I was looking at just to test out my theories.

2. Cathay reservation system definitely has a lag relative to BA and QF's award search. Sometimes I've called Alaska right after I see seats come up on BA, but multiple reps can't see it. However, 6/12 hours later *some reps can see the additional seats.

3. Most important: HUCA absolutely helps. I usually go through the MVP gold reservation line, but after trying the normal reservation line and finding a good agent that seems to know how to book a CX award ticket, they seem to always able to see the F seats and at least 1 J seat where BA shows availability (hence the delay theory in #2 )

TL;DR- Call the normal reservation and find agents that know CX well. Your chances of finding J/F seats increases significantly.

And yes, second F ticket was issued this morning after BA showed 2. (Only after 4 calls )