Originally Posted by
SilverChris
The airline doesn't owe you anything until the ticket is issued. While it's unfortunate that you ended up in this predicament, the agent verbally providing you options doesn't actually form an agreement. Award space is highly sought after so it's entirely possible that someone else snapped it up in the meantime.
Since it's a partner flight, there's not much they can do. Your best bet is to just hope something opens up.
I understand that availability can shift. However, this wasn't an availability issue - this was a poor performance by a CSR. The agent made an explicit statement that she could book the flight and made multiple assurances to that effect. What she then admitted afterwards was that she hadn't actually tried to see if the award could be booked, but just thought that it could because it was on her screen. 10000 points is several hundred dollars up in smoke - that I now cannot use elsewhere - I have a problem with that.