My wife wanted to give her daughter a RT award ticket to Rome for later this month to accompany her husband on a business trip as a birthday gift. What should be a 60,000-mile requirement turned in to 100,000 miles as the 60's were all gone, but the same seat could be acquired for 100,000 miles from a different "bucket" of award seats. She called the Platinum desk as the dates had a little bit of flex, but couldn't put a RT together, even with AA partners, for 60,000 within the dates (actually, she could get her there, but not back). So she reluctantly said yes to 100,000.
Have many of you been stuck with paying much more than you should have just to get an award seat due to non-availability at the original award amount?