Originally Posted by kiltedflyer

Yes, it was a single itinerary; 70k miles + $17USD per pax.
Over the course of the weekend, I had checked JFK-AUH & AUH-MLE (EY100-EY278) F & biz availability on the Etihad website using the R/T routing trick.
I called US reservations and unsurprisingly the agent could not see the seats... but she did check other routings and was able to find ORD-AUH-MLE for the nearly the same dates (EY150-EY278) and was able to add an AA positioning flight to the booking and put everything on hold.
Not fully satisfied with that, on Sunday I called Australia, possibly routed to UK based on the accent of the agent, and agent could not see the JFK space.
Then I called NZ, likely routed to Trinidad, again, based on the accent of agent. This agent could see JFK-AUH seats, but got an error when requesting tax calculation. She asked me to phone back indicating that she would need to re-boot her system. (So close and yet so far.)
Then I called NZ again and got a NZ agent; no mistaking a Kiwi accent. This agent could see the seats, and had no trouble putting the JFK-AUH-MLE itinerary on hold.
And then this morning I called the NZ# back to ticket, no issue, but the agent definitely did not have a NZ accent.
none of the agents ever could see F on our dates, I kept asking.
More than you wanted to know, I'm sure... but keep calling, and if you can see the space, eventually you should be successful; good luck!