Our family booked an award flight this fall from DEN to FCO, in business. A lucky booking since we're a fairly large group.

A few weeks after booking (and booking our repositioning flights and hotel to be in DEN for departure) - I got an email from Air France that our flight had been cancelled, and we'd been rebooked on the same itinerary a day earlier.

We can't really make that departure date work.

I looked online at alternate AF and KLM itineraries on that date, and found that while there was nothing out of DEN - there is availability out of LAX, SFO and YVR on those dates, all cities that are largely equivalent for us to get to as DEN.

However, when I called, the Flying Blue agent said there was nothing he could do, because they can only change the departure airport by up to 300 miles.

I pushed a bit, and he seemed to think this was an impossible obstacle. We could leave 2-days later (and miss 2-days of our trip), or one day earlier out of DEN, or cancel our flights and get our miles back, understanding that now every other option on those dates costs at least 3x more miles than what we originally booked.

His suggestion was to just wait and hope that something opens up.

My question is: is this actually an insurmountable obstacle, or do I have a chance of finding a more sympathetic/capable agent who might be able to help us out?