Surprisingly I was able to reserve my seats on AF site for free. I no longer hold elite status with ST, and I haven't registered any ffp # yet. I'll investigate if I should credit them to VS, DL, or something else.

I booked a one way BCN-CDG-MEX all AF metals in June, MEX-GRU in January. I booked GRU-SEA in Feb with AS miles before the devaluation, for 45k pts in J, so this will work out perfectly. It was €827. If you don't mind flying AM metal TATL, , the lowest was around €805 via MAD with a stopover at MEX, or high €600s without.

I think there was a post up thread telling us we should book on AM ES site. I also tried with MX and CA sites, AFAIK, they all returned the same search results. They seem to offer converted prices near spot rates.

US, MX, and CA websites offer 24 hours free cancellations and the lowest fare guarantee, but ES site says it is offered only on US site. I wonder if it's wrong and now offered in all countries. I wanted to use my CAD card, so I booked on their CA site. As I wrote in my previous post, their website said that my bank declined, but I was able to pay over the phone, and I was charged in CAD as should be.

Google says that the second AF flight of the day features the new cabin with the door, but I couldn't find with near the lowest fare with my dates.

Here are something I found, although they may have been already known to the community:

* The number of 'X seats left!' didn't change after my purchase.

* I spent a week searching what worked best for me, but the inventory and prices didn't seem to change at all.

* It seems a layover of 12 hrs or more at CDG increases the tax by around €10.

* BCN-MEX-CUN, CUN-MEX-GRU for around €100 more. Edit: it's starting from €1,044, and MEX-CUN and back will be in Y so only good deal when you need protected connections to and from CUN.

* AM doesn't seem to sell mixed cabins, at least with this fare.