August is peak overseas travel time for Japanese. It is the obon holiday period. We've gotten award seats for this time, and mileage upgrades...but all of them were booked well in advance. There were award seats available during August this past February...haven't seen any since. The flights generallly all sell out...overbook even..so don't expect award seats to open up later. In 11 years of traveling between the US and Japan, we've had one mileage upgrade clear close to the date of flight...all other ones were well in advance.

I didn see awards available on Continental...but I don't know how many of those would be available to WP mileage users. You might try them.