After a few days of searching here and there, I found first
class award availability from LAX - ICN (Seoul).
There's also been some great business -
class award availability from the west coast to Europe, and some new routes from the US to the UK will be opening up in the coming months.
There appears to be plenty of Business
Class award availability from London to the US....
Not exact matches
Here we had a stroke of luck, depending on how you look at it: while the direct service flight
from Los Angeles did not show
availability for a Business
Class or First Class Saver Award on most dates, a mixed class award connecting through San Francisco was avail
Class or First
Class Saver Award on most dates, a mixed class award connecting through San Francisco was avail
Class Saver
Award on most dates, a mixed class award connecting through San Francisco was avail
Award on most dates, a mixed
class award connecting through San Francisco was avail
class award connecting through San Francisco was avail
award connecting through San Francisco was available.
It looks to me like Lufthansa has just recently released quite a bit of partner
award availability for travel
from the US to Europe this summer in Business
Class.
Take a look a these screenshots
from American Airlines — all show Business
Class award availability on non-stop flights between various US cities and London Heathrow:
When I flew to Tokyo in January I had to position
from London to Frankfurt to catch a JAL Business
Class award flight on the 787 Dreamliner and when I had wanted to try out Cathay Pacific First
Class last year I had to position
from London to Zurich to catch that
award flight — London isn't exactly awash with
award availability.
The 777 - 300 offers 52 Business
Class seats while the Dreamliner has just 28 so, not only is the route losing First
Class, it will also see a significant drop in Business
Class capacity
from 15 December — that's not good for prices or for
award availability.
There appears to be a very poor Delta business
class, nonstop
award availability in Europe
from Seattle.
On the redemption side, the
award chart to /
from Europe isn't too bad (62,500 miles for a transatlantic one - way in business
class) and you get access to much better
availability on AF / KL's own flights that when booking with Delta.
The problem Cathay Pacific is experiencing is high demand for its first
class award seats
from those with AAdvantage miles, with these seats often booked soon after the
award calendar opens, leaving no
award availability for its own Asia Miles frequent flyer members who may seek to book just a few months before the date of departure.
Roundtrip coach
awards are 60,000 miles (not a bargain) while Upper
Class awards are 100,000 miles and, unlike flights
from Newark to London on Continental, there's actually really good
availability on Virgin in Upper
Class.
I believe Saudia also has great
award availability (sometimes even 7) in its First
Class from North America to KSA.
The
award space in business
class on Skyteam members Saudia (
from Washington DC or New York, through Riyadh and Jeddah) and Aeroflot (a much better airline than you think, and with great
availability out of New York and DC through Moscow) is better than on almost any airline.