stephem

I am wondering if others have been as frustrated as me on the recent nearly complete zeroing out of premium cabin awards on AF?

I am not just talking from a couple of anecdotal experiences, I have a ton of experience on SEA-CDG as well as the onward CDG-India flights. Even during the prior economic boom it was pretty easy to find my wife an award to map to my paid flights (the India flights were surprisingly easy). I used to have a rough sense of what I could find if I looked out a few months (mainly midweek) vs last minute (where I could find tons of options). Where the J/C/I booking classes were all 9's, things were often open in the award class. Often AF availability would disappear from the online search tool, but could still be booked by calling. Now, there is nothing, even with the flights showing 9's across classes on the day before departure.

I am curious, is anyone finding ANY AF premium awards? Is this something that others corelate with the DL merger or is this just a result of AF closing down availability?