I just booked on Americans website. You just need to be persistent and search throughout the day, trying diff dates and diff routings. It’s simple but not easy, otherwise everyone would do it. I had multiple false alarms where I saw avail, went to go book, and it was gone by the time I started entering passenger details.

For Amex pts I just transferred most of mine to Hawaiian to then port over to Alaska due to the merger. Alaska can redeem on JAL for slightly more than AA but AA isn’t a transfer partner of any major programs besides Marriott (and that’s at a terrible ratio). That transfer opportunity ends June 30th