Originally Posted by sfo3388

Welcome to the new normal. If you are super flexible, you can book a ticket with 300K miles. When close to departure, airlines could drop the mileage requirement. You can get a new ticket with much lower requirement. UA does not charge cancellation/change fees on award ticket.

When Taiwan had strict quarantine requirements from 2020 to late 2022, that was the best time to book J award seats on EVA.

For Taipei market, my experience is that EVA does not release J award seats until very close the departure date. For example, by checking United.com, leaving Wednesday 7/19, I see three EVA SFO-TPE flights, with 110K miles required for J seats. United's own UA871 requires 100K. United used to ask 92K for close-in EVA J award seats.

With dynamic pricing and strong travel demands after years of lockdown, we don't see that many good deals on award booking anymore.