AA Availability Question

haserfauld

Level 2 Member
My wife and I are looking to travel back east over Christmas. Award availability is always very difficult for the dates we generally travel (i.e. when everyone generally travels). This year, we're actually planning to fly home 1/1/17. Our extended family is in a rather rural area (ROA/LYH), and cash tickets are in the $700+ range (for economy). This is absurd. We could save money by flying to IAD/CLT, but then we're 150-200 miles away, and we either have to rent a car or have someone come get us. That time of year, 150-200 miles of driving can be a dice roll with weather. I found a flight out on United that works (economy, 12.5K)

So, I was surprised to find a business award LYH > SNA, which would be a dream (even with 2 connections). LYH>CLT is on a puddle jumper, but CLT > ORD, ORD > SNA are both in First. When I search it with 1 passenger, several options come up. When I change it to 2, nothing comes up. Plenty of seat availability, so I'm assuming every combination of routes only has a single award-eligible seat on it. Is this likely the case? I normally wouldn't burn 75K miles (total: 37.5K x2) for a domestic flight, but given I'd be shelling out close to $1500 cash while sitting on half a million miles, it's worth it to me. Plus first would be nice.

Any way around this?
 
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