When are ALL award seats for a given month available?

[Deal Guy]

 Jokes aside, I have a friend that clearly knows that he wants to fly economy to Israel for Lag B'omer "2012", with a few family members. Take Continental for example, is there a time when all dates are available? We all know that trying to look now for 'this' summer, and if you are lucky, you will find one, two or 3 dates available for the month at the cheap rate, although they 'may' open more up closer to the flight. But is there a time like maybe 15 months before a flight, that EVERYTHING  (or at least most dates) is available?

 On a further note, is there a easy way for him to put together 75k CO miles, for a flight. I am thinking of telling him to sign up for the Chase CO credit card (25,000 miles), open a Chase CO checking and Debit (25,000 miles), and a Amex membership rewards card, (for another 10,000-25,000 miles), {or the Chase Saphire}, which will get him 60k to 75k miles right off the bat, in no time. Am I calculating right?

[MarkS]

I think most airlines don't let you book more than 12 months in advance. There is a post somewhere here explaining uniteds blocking that has a very good explaination of how all airlines calculate award availability. Based on that I would say there is probably never a time that all dates are avail. First of all there are blackut dates, and 2nd on any date that they think they can sell out the flights they can just offer none or very few seats on, leaving the bulk of their avail on dates they think their planes will have lots of empty seats.

[moshegold]

delta has ALL their award seats available the first few days that they open their flight (which is about 330 days in advance). I flew this year from JFK to TLV during tishrei with 5 friends & we all flew business first for 120,000 miles each

[aussiebochur]

Most airlines allow bookings up to one year in advance if flying on their metal or 11 months if flying on a partners metal.

[SuperFlyer]

No one allows booking award miles a full 12 month in advance.
Its by every airline different.

[aussiebochur]

No one allows booking award miles a full 12 month in advance.
Its by every airline different.

I stand corrected.
Qantas allows up to 345 days.

[steve2]

Most airlines allow bookings up to one year in advance if flying on their metal or 11 months if flying on a partners metal.

that doesnt mean that the Carriers have loaded the Award seats into their Inventory

Im finding more & more that the further away from the flight date the harder it is to find availability, some non-US Carriers do a better job of opening up their Inventory almost a year out