I have the same irregular experience. NW blames the KLM computers, KLM blames the NW computers. Neither one wants to admit what the real problem is! "They don't talk to each other very well, and no one wants to fix the software!!!"

KLM is very protective of their seats and seat assignments. For whatever reason, they feel that they should have the almighty Last Word over who sits where on the airplane, and for that reason I quite often can not get a BP for a flight from AMS when I check in the previous day in the US.

And here is a similar and unexplainable situation I ran into about 18 months ago. I was bringing a very large group (36 people) back to the States from Prague after spending a week in the Czech Republic and Austria. The group was all in one reservation, I was in a different one because I would be leaving them in MSP and heading home to Omaha while they all were taking a different flight to a different city from there. We all checked in together in Prague. I had no problem getting my BP's for all 3 flights. But out of the group of 36, 1/3 of them got all 3 BP's for the flights back, 1/3 got only two out of three BP's, and 1/3 got only the PRG-AMS boarding passes. GO FIGURE!! No one could explain the how and why to me, since they were all in the same reservation! They just said "Deal with the Transfer Desk in AMS." Yes, the flight AMS-MSP was over-booked. And yes, I had to deal not only with the Transfer Desk in AMS, but also with NW after we got to MSP, to get the final BP's for the last 1/3 of the group to continue on to their home. It was a monumental hassle to say the least. When all was said and done, the only bright spot in the whole mess was that when I finally got to the gate in AMS to board the flight to MSP and got the entire group on with about 10 minutes to spare, they already had an Op-Up BP printed for me! One of the rare ones I have snagged out of AMS.

Along with all of their other annoying quirks at KLM, like "Whatever you are asking for, it is NOT POSSIBLE!", they continue to live with an antiquated computer system (according to the folks at NW) that is not only unreliable, but also totally unpredictable!! You never know what you are going to get back from them, when you request a Boarding Pass or a Seat Assignment. All I can say is "Best of Luck" when you have to deal with KLM.