Originally Posted by
bdubs7
bump since the next question got a bunch of replies and this one may have been missed. Thanks!
I cannot answer your question regarding October, but I will share my own recent experience. I am currently en route to MLE from JFK and had the same issue as you (J award for JFK-DOH, but then economy for DOH-MLE.....only difference is that the 2nd leg was part of my J award booking, as there were Economy award seats available at the time I booked). I searched everyday for 6 weeks leading up to departure for the J awards from DOH-MLE, with no luck. Same thing for the return from MLE-DOH. And expert flyer still shows plenty of J seats for sale. My guess is that they are hoping to sell those as upgrades.
Are you aware of AwardNexus? You can set up a daily search for your QR routing and it will email you every day to let you know if it finds availability. Good luck with your planning!