Best to act early and be positioned to act when the seats are released.
Take a look at this (Award Flight Assist): Award Flight Assist - Frequent Flyer Solutions as this is a paid service provided by AFF for the problems that you are trying to solve.
Also there are a few good Travel Agents on here who know some really good tricks of the trade and may be able to help you out. [USER=38951]@madrooster[/USER] comes to mind as someone who you could send a PM to seek assistance. Again, expect a fee because they are doing the (hard) work for you.
Either way, it would probably be worth it for you in the long run and worth spending some money to get a result that's a lot better than you would be able to achieve on your own.
