I find nothing more annoying in the frequent flyer world than trying to redeem my Skymiles, and my latest effort to get coach seats to India (see related thread) is my latest misery.

At the end of the day, my problem comes down to one question: if Flying Blue is showing "low" category award seats available on AF or KL, are these seats available for Skymiles customers? It seems folks used to think "yes," but at least when it comes to business class seats, some folks have been saying "no." There talk of glitches and "blocking" (given that it's Delta, I'm guessing glitches) but I'm only looking for coach seats so I would think blocking is far-fetched.

If Flying Blue's inventory IS supposed to be the same, how do I "make" DL get me those seats when their computer is saying "no"?

What's even stranger is that some AF/KL award inventory displays on delta.com (almost randomly -- some city pairs have it, some don't), but it's often different from what Delta's agents say is available! And then, if you do a new online search, you often can't duplicate your previous award search results!

It's all just nuts. Other than book with Star or Oneworld -- which is what I often wind up doing -- I don't know how to solve this problem.