I’ve given American AAdvantage a hard time about award availability on American Airlines flights, and deservedly so. At one point things were so bad that the short distance Austin – Dallas had only six days during the year with a single flight offering a saver award, despite over 10 flights a day usually costing just $49.
However they’ve also been releasing a decent amount of space over the past week and a half or so. That seems to be the pattern — award space dries up, then there’s a bit of space briefly, before drying up again.