When are you booking for? I just booked a RT to Europe for the post-Christmas period and was able to come in at 120k roundtrip for 2x Polaris tickets.
I agree with the above that some of the availability comes from using miles within the specific program you are booking (the above UA tickets were UA discounting IN for premier members so someone booking with Aeroplan wouldn't have had access). Likewise I see pretty good availability on AF/KL metal when searching via FlyingBlue and SQ has good options since they restrict J/F from partners.
Don't forget you've got the World Cup in DOH at the end of the year so many of the major airlines have sold actual revenue tickets to DOH that are using space on trunk routes into the hubs before they connect on to DOH. The reason you see nothing with AA to Africa is because QR space has basically disappeared in the lead up to the World Cup and of course AA doesn't fly there on their own.
And at least from the cities you've listed there are very legitimate reasons why availability is near impossible:
DOH/AUH -- see above
HKG -- China COVID policies and flight restrictions
TYO -- crazy demand due to restrictions just being lifted
TLV -- has never been an easy award ticket
EZE/GRU -- no surprise, this is Spring/Summer down there so lots of people traveling there, would bet any award seats on these routes for this time period were snapped up months ago. When we went to EZE pre pandemic I had to book 10 months in advance to get AA J seats for a September visit
Last edited by Duke787; Sep 30, 2022 at 6:14 pm