My daughter has just been accepted into a summer study program at Oxford next July. Only problem, they had to arrive at Heathrow in a 6 hour window in the middle of our winter holidays and then another 6 hour window to leave Paris in August. As she will only be 15yrs old then, there was no overnighting anywhere or long delays in strange places (middle east I am looking at you). It was only possible to get QF1 or an etihad flight on the way over and an emirates, etihad or cathay flight on the way back, to meet the arrival and departure windows. Only the Etihad flights on the way over had award space but neither Velocity or American could see them and they could only see 1 etihad flight on the way back. No Oneworld flights available.
I rang the WP line and requested flights on QF1, which were rejected, which she turned over to manual checking. Called back this afternoon and they had F seats on QF1 and had also organised a J seat on the cathay flight CDG-HKG where the previously wasn't a seat. To connect to the next HKG-BNE flight with an available J seat, there is a 14hr wait in HKG, but as she is a WP as well, she will just sit it out in the Pier (pretty awesome place to spend 14hrs). Very spoilt girl but knowing she is safe and where she needs to be when she needs to be is worth it.
As a datapoint, QF wanted $3106 to do QF1 over and back in Y and would still have to add $114 for the CDG-LHR flight. Could save about $500 doing it on EK but no upgrade possibility.