I attempted to book a Condor flight from Frankfurt to SEA for next October 2 this morning, using our Alaska miles. The two seats we wanted in Business Class were available, and I was able to put them in my cart and proceed through the booking process with names, passport info, credit card selection, etc. all without a glitch. But when I hit the “pay now” button to confirm everything, the next screen came up with an error message: “We are unable to confirm flight availability at this time.” I was advised to “try again later” or choose a different date or route. There were no other dates with Business Class seats around the time we need to fly home.

I tried seven times over the next 90 minutes, all with the same result. In the end I changed to the only British airways flight that still offered business class seats on that day, which cost considerably more.

Any idea what is going on? It’s not a problem on our end—I booked our recent Condor flight TO Frankfurt with our Alaska miles and the same passenger information. I see the seats are still there, which means no one else has been able to book them either. Usually they are gone by mid-morning on the day they are released.