Originally Posted by dbernard2000

I'm so glad that I found this thread, as I am dealing with (and even posted about) some of the same stuff that I'm dealing with at the moment for an upcoming Air France trip from NYC to Asia and back.

I can offer a lot of insight based on my current situation I think, and here are some of the main points:
-- First, Air France actually has 2 types of O inventory ... The "award" which is the full ticket ... and the "upgrade" when you're working off a paid fare. I was advised this by one agent, and actually I work at a travel agency which has GDS access. 'O' for me shows different numbers when I'm out of my booking vs. in my booking (aka it sees I have the confirmed segment booked paid)
-- Second, yes you must search END TO END, there is no way around that. The availability changes based on the city pair market you're flying. The upgrades however don't have to be done all the way through, nor do they have to be available for all "married" segments at the same time. For example, My return PEK-CDG-JFK ended up popping up 1 "Upgrade O" but only on the CDG-JFK portion. I took it for just 15,000 miles from S class. My PEK-CDG remains as it was before, and still a week later nothing has opened on it (I check daily)
-- Third, AF absolutely holds upgrades as long as they can. My return in approx 40 days and one of the two flights (PEK-CDG) has not sold even 1 seat in business, at least according to the completely open business class seat map. Yet still, I've been trying for about a month now and not a day has gone by where they've opened a seat for upgrade specifically. It is however available for full purchase in miles on their website. They've released seats for award use, but again that "O upgrade" is not available.