Not exact matches
Even
though the ideal dates do not have flight
availability for 3 in economy, I would suggest putting his wife on a business
class ticket on the same flight as the rest of the family.
They don't let you book First
Class awards with partners at all, they rarely have low - level award
availability (and I think this might get worse after the recent devaluation), you can only redeem round trip flights (one - ways are coming in 2015
though), and in general their miles are much harder to use than those of other programs.
Even
though this is not a great option, Air India has plenty of
availability in business
class.
For those of us on the West Coast, you can often find a more efficient routing with another airline,
though many people still opt to fly Etihad if they can find award
availability in Etihad's The Residence or First
Class Apartments.
If you are scrambling to lock in awards at old rates, you might be having trouble finding Etihad business / first
class award seats even
though Etihad shows
availability.
Availability was pretty good,
though it's definitely better for first
class than business
class (which is what I'd recommend redeeming for anyway).
You can forget about finding
availability on the nonstops from the U.S. to New Zealand,
though you might have luck if you gamble and waitlist for a Business
Class seat on the United flight from San Francisco to Auckland.
Availability is still very good,
though typically there are two first and two to four business
class award seats per flight.
Historically business
class award
availability on Fiji Airways isn't especially good,
though I've seen a good amount of space lately, especially if booking in advance.
It has trouble with some partner award
availability and pulling up awards with mixed cabins (for instance, if one flight has a business -
class seat
availability but the next segment only has economy awards available),
though that seems to have gotten better lately.
Overall trends: As I mention above, you'll be hard - pressed to find business
class award
availability on Air France,
though I was able to find a few seats here and there.
Air Tahiti Nui has much better
availability for both business - and economy -
class redemptions,
though I recommend trying to book as far in advance as possible.
For example, even
though I used American Airlines miles to book Cathay Pacific first
class flights, I didn't search for award
availability on the AA website.
This information is primarily managed via a series of customized Matlab
classes, and the data and source code to use this system has been made available by Berkeley Earth (
though the proprietary restrictions on Matlab may limit its
availability for some users).