Gents, and ladies,

Thanks for all the help so far.

Was curious if someone could highlight what First Class cabins are usually available and at what time frames? I know about LH and Thai...

Cheers.

Routes, there's a thread on flyertalk with *A F routes, not sure where it is.

Swiss availability: never available anymore

ANA: good availability

United: for international F, don't know the current status but I feel like I don't see it as much as I used to.

Thanks

Just picked up UA IAD-FRA (777) (flying this segment right now), TG FRA-BKK (A380), TG BKK-NRT (A380) one day out (but inventory was showing for at least 3 days prior). During my searching, I also saw LH MIA-FRA (A380), and IAD-FRA/MUC (74H) but waited too long to book and/or a metal swap occurred 1 day out, which I suppose is a risk with LH 74H flights?

Also picked up UA HNL-SFO (737)... not sure if you'd actually call this "First" but that's what United calls it.

I'm also curious what other "O" inventory can typically be found as well as worth sampling. I'm totally waiting for ZX "O" =P

NH and OZ F awards are pretty easily available from NA to Asia if you book in advance. There's sporadic availability in between, and pretty good availability within 2 weeks of departure, though not as predictable as LH. NH has low YQ these days and is one of the best F products in *A.

TG F has pretty good availability year-round as well. Some routes like NRT-BKK on the A380 seem to only be available T-14, while other A380 routes can be found far in advance or close to departure.

LH F starts to become available in the T-14 window, but often more like T-1 to T-5 for tougher routes. Some routes are easier than others. Generally if you see 5 or 6 unsold seats when that window opens there's a pretty good chance a seat will become available eventually. Some destinations are near impossible to score an award seat on because of high paid demand (e.g. HKG, SIN, JNB, LAX, SFO)

SQ F is available only to CGK and BWN last I checked (I've also seen BOM and DEL at some points)

AI F is also available year-round, but I haven't tried it yet, so can't comment.

CA F used to have good availability from North America, but that seems to have all dried up as of late (plus AP has difficulty seeing CA award space.)

UA F is not worth your time. Even AC J is better IMHO.

I might agree that for YYZ-CPH, you're better off with YYZ-CPH on AC J than YYZ-ORD-CPH (I don't know if that exists, but you get the idea) on UA F.

But in DrunkCargo's case, he's ticketed in F, he isn't exempt from AC YQ, and there's a non-stop IAD-FRA UA flight.

I found UA F service to be similar to AC J. The product, however, was better. So if I'm flying TATL on an F ticket and there's no LH available, UA F is my preferred fallback.