I have two questions for any of the more experienced redeemers.

1) I have my route planned out (and Okayed by AE), as I search the segments for availability, I assume I can only call in when I have found the seats I am satisfied with on ALL my segments. But what if I can't find availably on only one for e.g. YYC-LAX(SFO) as my first segment. Do I wait until that becomes available before calling in and run the risk of losing the known/seen availability on the longer segs? Is there any way around this issue?

2) I am booking for two of us. Myself and the Mrs, I am using my AE miles for my costs and the Mrs AE miles for her costs. How do I get AE to allow me to use the miles in her account? Will this be booked as two separate itineraries? Transferring her miles to my account to cover her costs is just too expensive. How difficult are AE about this?