I would totally agree with you, but like...what do you do when looking for an award that can't be booked online that you don't wanna lose availability on in a couple weeks. One might think that award inventory would be through the roof for the next while as flights are empty, but I recently looked for some J space and found it to be just as sparse as usual (forget the route/carrier, someone in star alliance I'm sure).

I hate to take up their time, but this is what happens when you can't book your partners online.