Poor US domestic award availability
 

Trying to burn some avios on US domestic flights for next August, I have a hard time finding good availability. For instance, on such a busy route as JFK-LAX, the availability is very spread out, with most flights having only 1 J seat available (none in Y), which makes it impossible to travel as a couple. Will AA open up more domestic award seats later during the year, or is the availability really that poor?

You've answered it yourself, it's a busy route - so availability is unlikely to be anything other than sporadic

Have you looked at Alaska Airlines? You can check their availability via their own website, but have to call BA to book.

Also, remember there are a bunch of airports around LA, not just LAX. Ditto the other end - have a look at EWR or maybe even PHL as well as JFK.

Busy in the sense of number of flights. With almost hourly flights throughout the day, I am surprised that they only can offer something like 4-5 J seats on all those flights.

I called this morning, however they couldnt help me. Whatever is on BA.com is all they could see.

Do your searches on aa.com for AA and US flights and then call BA to try to book what you see on aa.com. That may help a bit. [I also search on AS's website to get Alaska Air options.]

AA award availability has gotten substantially worse since AA and US hooked up. And there are also now de facto blackout dates and other customer-unfriendly games being played (even as AApologists may try to deny that has been happening too).