This is somewhat related to another recent post here, so mods, if you want to combine I take no offense.

I know phantom award space is nothing new, but what I'm experiencing with Alaska right now is worse than I've seen...or I don't know the Alaska system well. In short, my wife is trying to use her AS miles to fly us to Fiji on Fiji Air next month but is having issues with the Alaska airlines system showing award space but the representative telling her it can't be booked when she calls.

There are a number of dates that show as available in J cabin on the AS, AA, and BA websites. The AA website will let me go all the way to the payments page, which it never does if the award space is actually unavailable - I'm very familiar with this process with AA and how to triangulate to determine whether award availability is real or phantom, and in this case it passes the tests. I have enough AA miles and would just book it, but my wife insists this one's her treat (it's her turn for our anniversary trip).

We've booked countless flights with AS miles before without this being such an issue, including on many OW carriers. Every time if the availability triangulates with AA and BA then it's gold.

Does anyone know if AS gets separate inventory? If so, it's strange that it shows in all 3 systems. Or (as is sometimes the case with AA), do you need to call a few times until you get the right representative that knows how to book the ticket correctly.