Originally Posted by
TravellingMan
The approach I had taken was just book the ticket at a slightly higher mileage from whichever gateway that was available. Then check every now and then and keep modifying the reservation to include extra legs and optimize the routing. The end result is making changes until almost the day of travel. After 2 dozen such changes one gets the itinerary they want.
This is exactly how I always book DL award. IME, although DL's availability is generally bad, it has the best availability of any US airline within 2 weeks of departure. I rarely had a problem finding low level award for the dates and routes I wanted.