Originally Posted by
absolu7
bpe totally get it, what would make even more sense for me is releasing award inventory as travel date gets closer, just to fill it up, no?
No. Even if the tickets are free the flights will not fill up; few people want to travel internationally right now, especially since most of them cannot even enter wherever they would travel to. The only thing that releasing award inventory would accomplish is encourage the few travelers to not buy revenue tickets or let them cancel their existing revenue tickets, and use miles instead. Not having to deal with rebooking awards if flights get changed or canceled later on is probably another bonus for them, although a minor one.
(I'm not saying that they should or shouldn't block awards like this, just that I can see why they might want to).