For example, Lufthansa and Swiss no longer release
first class award availability in advance (See How to Deal with No More Lufthansa Advance First Class Availability) and when they do release some close to the departure date there may only be 1 seat available.
As I explained in the introduction to this series of reviews / reports, I knew that my chances of finding Cathay
Pacific First Class award availability out of London, for dates that worked for me, were slim so I looked to other European cities to see what was available.
If you've already made definite plans, requested specific vacation dates, booked the rest of your itinerary, etc., there's always the risk of there not being any
Lufthansa First Class award availability for your specific date.
The
SWISS First Class award availability disappeared pretty quickly and, a few days later, those who had actually booked the awards suddenly noticed that their reservations were being cancelled.
In the past 6 months they've added excellent transfer partners in Korean Air (cheap transatlantic Skyteam awards, cheap Hawaii awards, and
awesome first class award availability) and Aegean (cheap Star Alliance business class awards).
The week I'm prepared to travel (10 — 16 December 2016) there is
no First Class award availability between London and Abu Dhabi («Guest First» has to show as available if you are to book Etihad First Class with AAdvantage Miles):
Just like with the amazing Business Class award availability which opened up at the end of May,
the First Class award availability I'm seeing is for January — March 2017.
Korean Air offers excellent business class and
first class award availability, and the service in those cabins is exemplary.
- Cathay
First class award availability is excellent, and it gets progressively better closer to the day of the flight, so keep on checking!
As a rule of thumb,
first class award availability is often better than business class award availability, as backwards as it may seem.
i have often been told by aa that there is
no first class award availability when the cathay website shows availability for cathay miles.