Hi Seat 2A -

You are an intelligent guy, don't be obtuse. There are times of the year where flights to any given destination are slow to sell. Those seats tend be released as award seats more frequently. It is called supply and demand.

As just one example ... the period between the end of Christmas break (sometime in mid-January) and the beginning of Chinese New Year in early February is a slow period. Every year I have always been able find a seat to somewhere in SE Asia. Alaskaair.com has those seats.

A good way to tell is to look on ExpertFlyer. When you see a bunch of seats available in the discount businesss class buckets of an airline, they will usually at some point make them available as award seats. And, when they do, they show up on Alaskaair.com. Yes, it costs $99/year, but it is worth it to me to be able to find seats that are not selling, or seats that are available with the Premium Fares listed in another thread on FT.