Originally Posted by QHatoff

Next week, I am traveling JFK to YVR on Cathay Pacific with a companion. I am currently booked in First, and he is booked in Business on sAAver awards. For the past two months, I have been actively monitoring availability on BA to see if we can sit together, but nothing has opened up in First. Interestingly, every time I searched throughout the past month, Cathay flights within 4 days of departure would not appear (which does align with what I have read elsewhere on Flyertalk, namely that Cathay cracked down on some sort of award fraud). However, starting a week and a half ago, the award "blackout" period seems to expand to two full weeks. Searching on BA, calling into AA's US call center, and even calling AA's Australia/Hong Kong call centers yielded the same result--no one can view any award seats a full week out from departure. Does anyone have any further suggestions to access award space? The flight went from 7+ economy sAAver, 7+ business sAAver, and 0 first sAAver to no one at AA being able to even see the flight as an option. =[