dukeman, got your PM.
The main problem seems that when you're trying to book int'l award travel, you end up getting stuck with the DM Gold (or whatever level you are) CSRs how don't appear to be trained to understand award availability. I log directly into Shares and SABRE and the seats are there, but whatever US is using in their call centers for DM agents appears to be dumbed down. Perhaps the Int'l group can understand availability better, but we've not been able to get through to them.