Originally Posted by KathinJax

I could be wrong, but I searched on the United website and found availability JFK-Tokyo. In August of next year, there seems to be 2 First seats available on most days. A few things that I noticed while I was watching availability -

1. Outbound Fri/Sat never seems to be available. Only Sun-Thurs. Inbound doesn’t seem to have the same pattern.
2. United receives award inventory around 320 days out. Today is 9/23, awards have been released through 8/13 on outbound.
3. At times, I found up to 3 first/business class seats available.
4. NYC and IAD seem to book up the fastest, followed by Chicago, San Fran, LA and IAH. I could never get an idea about SEA or YVR. You might want to position to the West Coast for your award if you can’t find seats from the East Coast.
5. Many times, First class is the easier award to get.
6. You can do an open jaw, but the agents might not know that you can. My agent was surprised that she could book it that way.

Hopefully, this helps - and of course, YMMV on booking these awards.

I attached a couple of pictures to show what I found on United (2 seats - the non stops are on ANA)