Following up on this. I have something booked right now, it's not ideal but it's workable. For those interested. The itinerary starts in early Dec and finishes in late Jan:
- MEL-HND
- NRT-HEL
- HEL-FCO
- MAD-DOH
- DOH-BKK
- SIN-PER
- PER-MEL (last one booked separately as I reached max 5 stops for 318k J)
Managed 4 J tickets for all segments.
The hardest part is getting back in AU basically any time in January. There was barely even a single Y award ticket from anywhere in Asia. Best they could do was book later in Jan with SIN-PER (still nothing to SYD or MEL).
I'm hoping more inventory will open up so I will have to monitor. Perhaps DOH-MEL will come back.
What is the best way to monitor for seats opening up? Manually checking? Or best to use expertflyer or a similar service to set alerts? (will that work?).