ANA award availability.. am I missing something?
 

To explain the background, I have around 68000 miles on AMC, and i'm debating whether to convert them to 34000 JL miles (yes, there are ways, through various points transfer program if you are patient enough yo go through the processes) or just to keep the miles as it is in hope if redeeming it in future. I mainly fly OW due to corporate contracts and have OWE status on JL. However I don't have any status on NH. I looked at NH award availability and am shocked at the state. For the next 5 months even for presumably 'easier' asian routes to redeem like Jakarta, HCM etc shows almost no availability, all waitlisted.. a quick comparison for JAL shows reasonable availabilities even 3 months out. Is there anything I'm missing in this comparison?

JL does have nice award availability compared to AMC. I think it's because it's easier to get NH miles through AMEX than it's getting JL miles through SPG points which some argue is not an good redemption.

68k is much better than 34k, that's an bit desperate.

I know, converting at 2:1 ratio seems like such a waste, which is why i'm still debating what to do, but the counter argument is, what's the point of having many miles that you practically can't redeem? are redemptions better on partner airlines or are they just as bad?

Well tbh I'm not sure your situation. I'm based out of IAH and I connect via NRT to asia and I have no issues with award availability.

I am also in a bad situation with NH miles...I'll have over 90,000 miles once everything transfers (through G-point and metro points) but can't find any availability. What a mess! I was going to just do RT Japan to North America, but am now considering a RTW itinerary for ~110,000, but then that means more chances of no availability. Try searching segment by segment. Sometimes that doesn't work either, though.

Trying to find RT J seats North America is very very very tough lately ever since Amex started giving away 100k per platinum card.

Everyone literally booked 1 J RT afterwards. F seems to always be open though so I guess that premium is like "high season" J.

I am not surprised that long haul routes like Japan- north America or Europe have very low availability, similar case for JL as well, but for lower redemption value (=less competitive) Asian routes like CGK or SGN or BKK to have close to 0 availability for next 5 months just seems unbelieavable to me..

not sure of your ffp status, but I wonder if NH allows more redemption space for elites? If so that might be the reason as I am a non status flyer with ANA. I literally scrolled through next 5 months for TYO- asian routes and sees almost no availability except for mumbai route..

I have $0 lifetime spending with NH lol.

none. only an earlier opening of the booking window, but not better award availability. NH has high demand from the many NH "heavy milers" and Star Alliance elites (i.e. long haul users with stashes of miles) in the Asia region in general....SQ/TG/OZ/BR/ even CA and NZ elites, on top of the usual UA?

Please compare with the Air Canada site or Lifemiles site to confirm the availability you see on ANA.
And....search one seat, one leg a time

I would love to have exactly 68,000 ANA miles, as it's a return trip in Business Class between Europe and the Middle East or Africa on Etihad! :D

This is not true. As a DIA I do have better award availability than non-elites -- frequently I can see seats available to me that are not available even to PLTs, much less ordinary redeemers.

This thread is a little scary for me! I've been collecting AMEX points for awhile now with the goal of transferring to ANA for a RTW itinerary in J for 4 people (420k pts total). I'm hoping to do the trip in August 2018, and will have the points to be ready to book in September 2017 when the calendar opens up. Do people think it will be impossible to get 4 J seats even booking 11 months in advance?

I knew ANA release 2 J seats on North America route when they first opening calendar

Was it a weekend inventory issue? I just looked at TYO to CGK/SGN in April and quite a few dates are available (at least 1 seat)..mostly economy but some business too.