Just want to update, I tried to do a manual booking on Lifemiles with the first two legs, NRT-ICN and ICN-ADD, in I and the last leg, ADD-ZNZ, in X. They responded, placed the flights on hold thus taking away from inventory, and informed me the manual booking department would contact me. No contact from that department so far.

Around a week later, I avail popped up on ALL 3 legs, and I was able to book the award on the Lifemiles website. 1xI is still showing on ICN-ADD and Lifemiles still hasn’t cancelled the initial hold. So altogether, I’m speculating 3xI on NRT-ICN, 4xI ICN-ADD, and 2xI on ADD-ZNZ. And that’s if ET doesn’t continue to release more seats.

I don’t know the logic of how Ethiopian releases award seats, but based on my anecdotal experience, it is possible to snag more than 2xI seats on ET through multiple bookings done at different times.