Unfortunately I'm stuck with a 6 figure TK M&S balance due to covid related cancellations last year (if only i could reverse the points transfer from Citi!!!). Have been trying to book single award seat on Air India business class between NY & Delhi, India where the space shows bookable online on TK as well as United Mileage Plus, Aeroplan, Lifemiles, etc.

On attempting to book this seat online it is selectable and on going to the page to make payment it is sending me a text/email verification code after which it is showing this error:
The ticketing approval for the fare class you selected in your travel plan could not be obtained from our contracted airline. We apologize for this inconvenience, which is unfortunately beyond our control.
You can change your flight selection and try again.

I've tried at least 7 or 8 times to call different customer service agents to assist and each time either getting yelled at that why am I calling TK to book Air India seat or simply that they cant find the award space at all. Sooooooo frustrating that cant find a way to use my miles for what should be obviously available!

I did try testing out what happens when I book award flight seat that is on Air Canada and United. Attempting the Air Canada booking online gave same error message as above and attempting to book United went through to the page that asks for my credit card details.

Does this mean only flights that are flown on either Turkish or United can be redeemed using Miles and Smiles points and not for flights operated by other star alliance carriers? Am thinking to make the trek to the NY office for turkish airlines but if doesnt work out will waste at least half a weekday that I have to take off from work too!

For the record, searching for flights on Turkish's own metal does have availability for the same routing I'm looking for but priced at 125k miles in J rather than 52.5k that shows for Air India! Would be quite ridiculous to have to spend 2.4 times the miles just because their website craps out!