Oneworld award booking to Paris over Christmas holidays

I need to get my lovely wife to France for 2 weeks during the Christmas holidays as her father is ill. Ideally this would be in F , or if not available in J. I am platinum with QFF. Is there anyway to gauge my chances of an awards request without calling and individually asking for each date. If anyone has a creative solution I would be really grateful. She wants to be in oz for Christmas with the kids and is based in MEL

you could search up award availability first and search on Expert flyer for some partner availability on airlines like Malaysian and japan airlines.

cathay will probably open up more seats week of departure

If not much is coming up or dates need to be specific, then call

checked a random date : if you leave on the 25 of December there is qatar F availability from MEL to CGD with a return on the 8th of November in J from CDG to DOH and then F to MEL on qatar, will cost 406,000 points though

Use the expertflyer website and search for availability in the appropriate award classes. You will have next to zero chance for Qantas at this late stage; possibly something may be available with Cathay Pacific or JAL, but I don't really like your chances.

If you're using Qantas Points, don't forget that you can also book flights with Emirates at the same rate as with Qantas, and also with China Eastern (at a higher rate) and Japan Airlines, which don't appear on the Qantas website (you have to call to book).

Japan Airlines has some pretty solid availability out of Melbourne (often 4 business class and premium economy reward seats on every flight, unless somebody else has booked them), which could be a good option - and you can then search for connecting flights ex. Haneda and Narita to Europe - just allow plenty of time if you have an airport swap in Tokyo.

(Don't just search for Paris - search for flights to cities nearby in Europe such as Rome, London, Vienna etc. which are only a 1-2 hour flight away from Paris, which can be booked separately if need be.)

For booking JAL, see here and here for how it's done.

My real question is with regards to award requests, which QFF offer their p ff upwards. How do I gauge the sweet spot dates to put in an award request to maximise my chance of success? I can search readily available ow awards via multiple ports in Europe, but I would rather with QF if they can provide via award request. My understanding that there needs to be I inventory available. Can I search this via expert flyer etc?

I can find only a few dates ie 23-25/12 or nye with j awards on offer there is virtually nothing in Jan. When I call QF they have to input every flight, every date to request which would take 4ever. Is there anyway of gauging award request success b4 calling QF?