Okay. I definitely feel your pain, as I have also resorted to multiple phone calls when confronted with similar road blocks. I have usually managed to break the impasse by the third call, however, by learning/noting where the snags might lie and making minor adjustments to my goals (i.e. acceptable target dates/cities). Important caveat: be sure they don't start down the "rebuild it from scratch" path unless you are certain the flights you already have locked up still have award inventory. This seems like it should be common sense for both us and AA people, but we've seen many accounts of lost award tickets on here, as a result of them accidentally cancelling (and the cancelled seats not being returned to award inventory).