raistlin

My pleasure. But have a shower first :-)

Anyway, when the agent (and I am SURE you found plenty of incompetent ones!) looks at the availability, first he sees different availability depending on how he looks at the segments. You need to find one smart agent who looks at each segment according to the operating carrier.

Then, even if the itinerary shows availability and the agent is able to put it on hold, they can switch to a different system and request to each Skyteam partner to confirm that availability.

Skyteam partners then CAN DENY AVAILABILITY to other partners even if the leg is available to their own frequent flyers, this is ALWAYS true. AF did this to me multiple times when trying to book them with AZ miles, for instance.

This is why what you see on airline A is one thing, what you see on expertflyer another thing, what the operator of airline B sees as available might be a third different thing, and even then finalizing the booking requires stars to be aligned right.