Doglover, maybe I am missing something; but I don't know how to "waitlist" the flight back to NYC. NW will not "waitlist" for a seat on a future flight that is "available" in J and could be ticketed - except that it would result in losing the confirmed J seat on the overbooked overnight flight to AMS.

I'm hoping someone here can tell me that it can be/has been done. I would like any guidance I can get before she asks NW about the possibility on the phone. We want to avoid a notation in her reservation record that she asked about it and was told NO!

I seldom fly NW because it doesn't go where I normally fly and the few WP miles I have could only be from NYC-DTW and NYC-MSP and the occasional KLM flights intra-Europe. As you can see from the left side of the screen, AA is my preferred carrier. Thus I am not very familiar with the way in which NW tracks/records pax contacts. On AA, such an inquiry, if carried beyond the phone CSR to a supervisor (or even an "on-hold" consultation) would almost certainly result in a notation in the PNR. Any 'denial' notation in a PNR can be a killer at AA, even when it is wrong, as I once found out. So I am now VERY careful.

I say all of the above because we may decide to shoot craps and try it. She wouldn't need to "call" NW on arrival in AMS since we would both be at Schiphol (with a ticketed RT on KLM for AMS-Berlin-AMS). We would simply go to the NW ATO and request that the AMS-NYC leg be re-ticketed to the future date. She has time and date flexibility there, including a downgrade if Business is unavailable on any of the NWA-KLM flights AMS-NYC.

It would be (and maybe will be) interesting to hear why an Unrestricted Business Class fare which permits Unlimited Free Stopovers would lose its value with advance notification of the cancellation/postponement of an ongoing leg on the itinerary.