Holding a res for trips over 14 days
 

To book a trip on Qantas using an AA award, you need to call in 330 days before the flight if I hope to get a res. But AA will only hold the res for 14 days, and if the trip is more than that, how can I get AA to hold the outbound res until the first date that I can book the return?

In some rare cases you might get a nice agent that will extend the hold, but normally they refuse, and there is no work around.

book a dummy return date which IS available, and when your actual desired date becomes available change - changes are free as long as routing doesn't change.

Thank you for the excellent solution. That will work.

I'm told by various sources that the ticket will only be valid for 12 months from date of issue. So the actual return date cannot be more than 12 months after the ticket is issued?

I'm in a similar quandary where my return date is about 5 months after the outbound. The outbound is now bookable but I'd have to wait till August to book the return. And given the scarcity of awards I'm not even thinking about trying to get AA to hold the booking till August. I suppose in this case the insertion of random dates, only to change later to the actual dates, for the return won't work as the actual dates are outside the 12 month validity period? :(

This rule varies by ticket type. Most paid tickets are valid for 12 months from the date of the first flight, and the first flight must be within 12 months of date of issue (24 months total). A few paid tickets are restricted to 12 months from date of issue for all flights. Most award tickets also have this restriction, including AA award tickets. QFF awards are valid for 12 months from the date of the first flight (so QF award can do what you want, AA award cannot).

Correct, it won't work.