At the end of last year when Cathay started resuming flights there was a period where J & Y awards were relatively plentiful, so my guess is these flights were booked then
Yup but I wouldn't use the word plentiful. It was quite a competition to book right at the moment they released it (331days). Didn't really sleep well for like a week and I was still only fast enough to book basically BOS and not the more popular west coast ones because there are always someone who can click faster than I do.