Best partner for late release of reward seats

[FlyingFiona]

I'm a Velocity newbie. Are there any partners who typically release reward seats at T-30 or less?

 

[Human]

ANA and United come to mind.

 

[FlyingFiona]

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out for those. Not only am I not familiar with Velocity partners, I'm not used to planning a, overseas trip in such a short space of time. Usually I have flights locked in a year-ish out.

 

[MathNerd]

ANA and United come to mind.

United not so much anymore (at least in J). It's all zeroed out with their recent culling of IN space.
In Y you'd be fine, but why would you redeem valuable VA points to fly in UA Y?

 

[Human]

why would you redeem valuable VA points to fly in UA Y?

Well, maybe you're like me: points rich but money poor. Or maybe you're also like me and you couldn't find Business class flights out of the country, given the short timeframe, so you've redeemed your points for Economy flights for some of the way. Or maybe you have a family and the only way you could possibly afford to fly at all is to redeem points for Economy flights for all of you. There are any number of perfectly legitimate and valid reasons.

Of course you get more value-per-point redeeming points in Business or First class. But sometimes there are very good reasons to redeem points for Economy flights and it's important that we don't inadvertently put other AFFers down just because they choose to use their points differently fron the way we would choose or prefer to use them.