Domestic coach availability 6 months out
 

I'm planning a trip to Australia for August, 1 traveler, MileSAAver award in coach. Departing from MSN (preferred) or ORD on Aug 6-9, returning Aug 17-21, and a day or two stopover in SFO one direction or the other would be nice.

I've found plenty of availability on the Qantas trans-Pacific flights (and have them on hold), but virtually nothing on the domestic legs to get from ORD/DFW to/from SFO/LAX. (MSN-ORD/DFW is a bit better.) Is that pretty typical 6 months out, or is domestic coach award availability typically very limited in August? I note that there's pretty good availability on similar routes in May, less in June, and very little in July or August, checking random dates on ExpertFlyer.

I plan to book the Qantas flights I want with placeholder domestic flights with the intention of changing them later, but I'm nervous about doing that in case more desirable flights never do open up. If necessary, I'm willing to buy a cheap flight to the west coast, but that won't be an option on the outbound if I have an undesirable ORD-SFO/LAX flight ticketed.

Does anyone have past experience with this problem?

I see what you mean for that weekend. If you want to O/N in DFW you can do the 6th and 7th to LAX. Speaking of which, the options for segments with O/N connections returned in an AA.com AAward search can be limiting. I've had good success searching one segment at a time and then phoning in with the flights in hand. Have you tried building something segment by segment on AA.com?
ETA: oops, I see this is probably an All Airline redemption so the O/N flights I saw wouldn't work.

By "O/N" do you mean overnight? I'd almost certainly prefer to buy a paid ticket to LAX than overnight in DFW.

I have searched individual segments (LAX-DFW, LAX-ORD, etc) in ExpertFlyer and AA.com without finding anything available. I currently have on hold an LAX-AUS-ORD routing on the return on Aug 21, but nothing domestic on the outbound (just originating in SFO).

Yes, it is an All-Airline award. I'm looking at T inventory for the AA domestic flights.

The mythical sAAver award? Trying to get from SF-London
 

Due to a change in work plans, my family and I hope to travel to the UK for a week in April.

I have ~360k AA miles and could transfer another 125k from Starwood. Ideally, we would like to book 4 business class tickets from the Bay Area to London, departing 10April and returning 18April. The sAAver award is 100k round trip, but this award is harder to find than the proverbial unicorn. There is virtually no availability in either direction during the entire month of April, from any Bay Area airport to either LHR or LGW. The only option seems to be spending 80k/person for coach (60k out + 20k return) which seems on the high side.

Are there alternatives such as the All-Airline or OneWorld awards which might reasonably fit the bill? Note that none of the European OneWorld partners (except for BA, which sadly can't be used) fly non-stop from the Bay Area to Europe, so I think these would require multiple connections . . . but perhaps I am missing an option.

One of the issues you're facing is that it's very late in the game to be trying to find SAAver awards to a popular destination. That's going to impact any of the possible routing options.

Edit: Just noticed that 4 tickets are sought on the same flight. This is a generally unrealistic SAAver expectation.

Cheers.

You could try BA via YVR/YYZ or IB via BCN/MAD. Probably will be very difficult to get 4 J tickets (and have at least 2 connections). Also, if less seats in J are available you can grab the remaining in Y and hope J will be available later (IIRC AA will let you change from Y award to J award with no fee).

Ideally, ;) you should have begun your quest mid-last year, had some itinerary / date flexibility and been prepared to split the four up into two different itineraries, for enhanced success. You have very specific dates, in less than two months' time, from / to prime destinations (which nonetheless have had reductions in seats available) and want SAAvers? I appreciate your boldness and imagination, but... :) I think nsr has given you some good advice, and apparently you have identified some SAAver returns, so go for it.

I find AA far easier to use miles than DL or UA. As for the OP, I would buy coach tickets and try to use miles to upgrade or just look for good Y seats and know you are earning miles enroute. If coach is pricey, 80k isn't bad at all for RT to London from SF.

These dates fall within the UK school holidays, a peak period for family travel. As in the USA, each district sets its own dates, but checking one in London I see that Spring Term ends on 1 April, and Summer Term begins 19 April.

http://www.halftermdates.co.uk/index.html

Ideally we would have booked this all several months ago; in fact, we did book the hotel using pre-devalued HH points, but figured that we'd almost certainly have to cancel because of a major work event scheduled for Ms. JHunter in mid-April. As of 5AM this morning, though, said event got pushed back by several months and here I am!

It isn't an ideal world, though, and we'll just have to live with whatever the best alternative is. As to the best alternative, that's why I'm posting! :)

Note, though, that we could break this up into 2 itineraries of 2 people each, and could move at least one of these by a day or two (non-ideal world #2: this week is my children's school break).

you might look at ba for awards.....they have the premium economy [wt+] which isn't bad, but its still a peak period.....good luck...

My advice: scour for 1 or 2 J seats, then book the rest with a Y award or with $$.
Then use your treasure chest of starpoints to book a nice hotel for the fam.

You could route through RDU, which has a direct to LHR. There's nearly always J availability on that leg. All you have to do is find the availability btw SFO and RDU.

No RDU-LHR U availability for the time when the OP wants to go.