award seat availability
 

have been checking for seats from HKG-MAA for Feb, March, April, May, June etc and no seats showing at all even though flight loads are very light... any idea what's going on?
When I check for Jan on flights that are much more full seats are still available... does cx usually open seats for flights closer to date?

I'm assuming you are talking about J class since there seems to be Y class on almost every day I checked?
I'm not sure why there is no J space in advance... maybe you answered your own question by saying many more seats are filled in Jan and thus showing CX sells a lot of last-minute/close to departure tickets on this route. This may be the reason that they don't open them up in advance. CX does usually open up more award space closer to the date of departure ^

If you can stomach the risk of last minute bookings, it seems like waiting may be an option. Not on CX, but on QF, I booked a return award flight the night before departure. I'd bet CX is similar on close-in flight award redemptions.

(I could be wrong, but just a guess) :)

Quite often that is the case.