Some, but not all, of the upper deck seats are open. The rest are held back for Gold card holders or because of the emergency exit. The four seats in rows 60 and 61 are where I usually end up in pre-allocation.

You will have no problems at all getting an upper deck seat now for a flight next year.

The 747 downstairs, especially the smaller section, is far preferable to the 777 which is like a battery farm. However, the 747 upper-deck is head-and-shoulders above both of these.