Melbourne to Japan on Points

[Himeno]

You might have better chances to get award seats during Japanese school holidays.
During school terms, there are often Japanese school groups traveling on the flights to/from Australia (I've seen a school group on around 80% of the flights I've had to or from Japan).
A single school group would take up 1/3-1/2 of the seats in economy, which has often led to operational upgrades for high status solo pax.

 

[elanshin]

You might have better chances to get award seats during Japanese school holidays.
During school terms, there are often Japanese school groups traveling on the flights to/from Australia (I've seen a school group on around 80% of the flights I've had to or from Japan).
A single school group would take up 1/3-1/2 of the seats in economy, which has often led to operational upgrades for high status solo pax.

One of the downsides of losing the QF schoolbus. That QF 747 was often full of school kids at the back. In fact I was one of them decades ago on my first trip to Japan as part of a school exchange.