Originally Posted by
marcuslai
I feel for the OP. Personally, I do think the advertising is deceptive. Especially if there is no date for a year where there is availability. That is simply un-acceptable.
If I were the OP, I would kick up a fuss on the phone line (when you manage to get an agent again), and do not hang up until you get a confirmed booking using your miles. CX is good that way, the computer used by the frontline says no, but the supervisors or whoever else have a lot of flexibility they can exercise.
Really? I suspect the problem is that there is no date for a year where availability is open
right now. There will almost certainly be flights on this routing most days -- maybe even every day -- from here to the end of the year that will have travelers on redemption bookings. If OP waitlists, he may get such a seat himself.
In this respect, it's not much different from what happens with discounted revenue bookings. Most flights go out with tickets that were sold at the cheapest fares, but that doesn't mean the cheapest fare for a particular flight will be available for purchase on the particular day you want to buy it. (Status even comes into it, with upper-tier MPO members getting access to lower buckets via the seat guarantee that may not be available to the general public, in the same way status holders rank higher on the waitlist for awards.)
In any event, I doubt kicking up a fuss is likely to yield much in the way of increased availability, especially since it sounds like the OP doesn't have any MPO status....