I can't speak to the situation in higher than coach class on international flights, but I've done a lot of booking acrobatics on the coach side internationally to get awards over the years.

Some of it is voluntary, like convoluted itineraries to get a plum stopover (HNL on Asia trips a good example). Other times it's not, like the most recent Asia trip where I had to do a MNL-BKK open jaw to make it work (I should mention that I'm always going for standard awards, none of this 2x "rulebuster" business that devalues miles by 50%).

Usually I get something to work, but I must say that I'm both more flexible in my time and adept at working the online tools than the average person. FTers as a whole are probably a lot more booking-savvy than the general population.

You can also play the waiting game and find that a lot will open up 2-3 weeks from a flight due to cancellations, but, again, many people aren't in situations where they can pounce on it. Maybe it's hard to get a vacation approved by the boss on that short a notice or they are in a work group and have coverage problems (or someone else already put in for the vacation time). Those type of people can be very flexible on dates *if* they can book way in advance, and they'll probably call way in advance. It's one thing to not get your first choice of dates, quite another to hear that everything in the standard award category is booked up solid for 4-5 months on all dates. It's incidents like the latter that get people questioning how many seats there were to begin with and whether they really had a chance. (Also note that airlines often don't volunteer to search partners for flights!)

I can see how it goes both ways...