It's the entire overall premium and CC/points market in the US. A few of these programs I'm a little too intimately familiar with from spending a little too much time on them. In general, every airline knows that the award AND premium demand from the US is particularly high. I think every airline market analysis will confirm that fact. Not sure how much of is deliberate (e.g. they know the demand is so high that they deliberately reduce award availability), and how much of it is genuinely organic award demand (demand is so high that everyone with award alert tools instantly books any availability). You'd need internal revenue data to know that for sure of course.

For CX, for example, they do not appear to EVER release F awards at any time on any US O/D routes beyond the initial few seats during schedule open, which is available only for CX elites well before AA can book. This is despite literally having plenty of lowest-class F available right before the flight. Similar story with J and Y, even with many seats last minute they would rather gamble on upgrade bids or last minute bookings than releasing award seats. And when they do occasionally get released due to *deeply* empty cabins, I've only seen maybe a few openings for high tier partners like JL IIRC and not AA), and I think a single time ever for AA. So AA is a very, very low availability tier partner for CX, at least on US routes. It's always possible that this is from people with bots so fast that you never see the opening, but I've never seen any internal data

Totally different story for LHR-HKG flights. I routinely see F awards last minute get released (in fact, a lot of the F availability that's shown on CX AsiaMiles is actually a connecting US-BA/AA-LHR-CX-HKG flight), and quite a few open awards probably fly without ever being redeemed. One of my observations was that it's quite rare to ever see a flight take off with any remaining award inventory on some of the popular US routes (when I see USA-TYO, or USA-HKG, it's pretty much always gone by the next time moment I check)

For QR, similar deal. Most premium US inventory (90%+?) is only available directly only QR's program and some select partners. And even then, US-DOH inventory always instantly gets taken, but any other long haul across the world will often remain for some time. I've never seen any inventory also show up on AA, but other OW partners often can't see it either.

For JL, I do think AA more or less has the best inventory, other than on JL's own program. People sometimes get confused because of their dynamic awards, but it's pretty rare to see genuine lowest-award J inventory for US routes even on their own program. One step up from the absolute lowest mileage redemption class gives you a lot more opportunities. You see the same thing when booking AA metal with AA miles, vs using JL/AS/etc. My understanding is AA/JL have a pretty close business relationship because of their codeshare/(joint business?) arrangement on US-Japan routes. The JL program was literally offering double miles for flying on JL-codeshare AA metal recently. It's just extreme premium demand. FWIW, I rarely see any AA flights on CX, even when it's available to QR/EY/AS/QF, so I believe the lack of inventory is mutual there.

Anyway, maybe this is new thing for OW, but I've been seeing it on *A for quite a while. Some *A partners see more ANA inventory, some see less, etc. I've had customer support agents from different airlines explicitly tell you that it's their partners that simply don't release inventory to them.

(/gen) I don't see how that contradicts the narrative of "airline frequent flyer programs partner with transferable points programs, causing own-program redemptions to increase and resulting in higher prices / less availability to partners (especially partners that don't price partner awards dynamically)"

​​​​​Emirates ​​Skywards, Finnair Plus, Cathay Asia Miles, and all of the other Avios flavors all partner with US bank programs, which could be construed to explain why the availability is so terrible through AAdvantage.

Yeah, the previous response seems to answer my question. I have also noticed that SQ on their own program have also drastically reduced award availability as well, notably on F. Last year there were plenty scattered throughout the year, now there are none on any route (I am running with the assumption of 2x F). Why did they claim dynamic "Access" awards would not change the saver level award availability, when it totally did?

Regarding AA, I am seeing A LOT of phantom availability, as a matter of fact, every single one of the available premium cabin seats are phantom. Some AA agents try doing a "manual long sell", but usually come back negative. Is this what VS also does when you call them to request award access on ANA, by chance (I know it is probably not the forum, but just curious)?

If you search and find ORD/SFO/LAX/SAN-TYO in isolation, you won't encounter phantom availability.

If this was the case, it currently is not. I have searched every single one of these itineraries and nothing came up. I did nonstop as well as with multiple stops. Nothing. There were some that came up in F and J, all phantom. Every single one.

Edit: So it turns out you are somewhat correct, however there are still plenty of phantom award. I was able to put two J tickets on hold SEA-YVR-NRT via AS and JAL on hold for 24 hours. What are my chances of getting 2 F on JAL via AA, or should I expect only 2 for J and 1 at most for F via AA, US routes?

2F is possible on ORD routes, but don't count on getting it.

In addition to seeing A LOT of phantom availability I'm also see made up options that aren't possible. For example, seeing F award on SGN-HND-KIX-LAX and none of the flights have F cabins, unless you count the domestic F on the hour flight from HND-KIX. But, it also shows J availability on the same route, so I'm not sure what it is trying to say is "F".

Not a new thing. If any of the Japan Airlines flights are in first, the itinerary prices out first.

To avoid phantom availability, the only option is nonstop. Searching for itineraries with multiple stops highlights the phantom availability.

More specifically, you have to avoid combining AA flights with JL flights. Connecting itineraries entirely on JL metal won't be phantom, in general.

No, I was searching today and wholly JL itineraries (e.g. LAX-HND-BKK) where showing availability in all classes, but none were actually bookable.

AS.com seems to do a much better job showing actual availability that is bookable. Was able to snag 4 seats in PE for SAN-SFO(AS)-HND-BKK using AS miles that AA.com didn't show. I know: different program, different availability, but I would much rather be able to get seats than be shown something that doesn't actually exist.

Phantom availability is crazy. Even Alaska air. One flight had 6 open seats for jal but all phantom�

Phantom JL availability has been a big problem the past week or so. It's more prevalent when AA offers a connecting itinerary but it's also showing up for nonstops. It does help if you know the aircraft (i.e., no F on the 789).
Note though that AA has better access to JL availability than AS, so you may be limiting options when searching on AS. Best course is to search both I guess.

Any JL flight that shows up on AA is phantom. Any day that I click on even x class still phantom. Doesn't matter if it is all JL or with AA connection they are all phantom. What is going on?!

Not every flight. There's still JL F/J award space out there to book. Admittedly though the amount of phantom space currently is annoying - but can also be an advantage.

-FlyerBeek