Found the thread. Thanks, mtkeller.

I knew about the airport taxes but wasn't sure which countries were more tax friendly but read that FRA is also a good choice (no low awards for AMS-JFK in my time frame) and originally thought about spending some time there. So I booked the following:

JFK-LHR stay in london 5 days
LHR-AMS stay in Amsterdam 3 days
AMS-FRA stay in Frankfurt 1 day
FRA-JFK

Still 100k and taxes cut to $168.60 saving me $150 and a train ride. Thanks for the advice!

Now my next step is to book flights on aircraft other than 767s. For the flights I booked just now that would require a connection to another city. However, when I originally looked at JFK-AMS I saw that KLM operates a 777 and 747 but they were not availalble as an award at all (even on FB) and all I could book was DL's 767. Not that I'm complaining but I'd like to try BE in one of those planes.

Before you go adding connections to book away from the 767-300ERs, check out ClipperDelta's recent thread on which routes are to get the converted (lie-flats) 767s this summer, and remember that all 767-400ERs already have lie-flats. Enjoy your trip.

Per Delta.com both TATL flights are on 767-er400s and have flat beds. JFK-AMS are on recliners (which aren't so bad). I wasn't thinking of doing the connections on this trip but in the future. I was never in BE on a foreign carrier or a large plane and would like to experience it at some point.

Going Blind . . .
 

Friends,

I'm working to build an award itinerary from South Florida to Italy with a stopover. And, I feel like I'm going blind with all the possibilities, and I find myself getting discouraged when half the trip works but the other half doesn't.

My top concern is to fly BE on the TATL. Second concern is to build in a cool stopover. (My wife and I have been thinking BCN, but we're open to suggestions that might make for more availability.) Third concern is to build in a long layover, but I'm having a hard time getting DL.dumb to price this right. (We're not married to this idea, but think it'd be cool to spend an evening in LHR or CDG, for example). Fourth concern is to build in an open jaw, if it's feasible and makes sense for our trip.

We live in Key West. We'd prefer to fly out of EYW, but, since the low tier availability in BE would have to marry up to TATL from its one destination, ATL, it appears flying out and returning from home isn't going to work. So, we're probably going to have to fly out of MIA or FLL and route through ATL or JFK. (TATL out of MIA don't seem to have good low tier availability.)

In your collective experience, are there times where building the itinerary one way has much less (or more) availability than another?

Here's an example.

I've been trying to building something like this: (FLL or MIA) - (JFK or ATL) - BCN (stopover) - (destination in MXP or FCO) - (MXP, FCO, FLR) - (insert necessary layover) - (MIA or FLL).

Continually, though, I'm having difficulty getting each of the segments to work together. But, if I insert the stopover on the reverse, something like this:

MIA - JFK - ROM - MXP - BCN - JFK - MIA

There is plenty of low tier availability according to DL and FB's award calendars. (Though, I haven't priced it out segment by segment.)

Yikes . . . this is frustrating . . .

I've had good luck using EF with CZ, more issues with MU.

Need help: LSE-CDG --- CDG-MLA --- FRA-LSE
 

I am new to this and need some help. I am planning a trip to Europe for my wife and me and after reading several pages on this board I wonder if you could help me with seat availability. I have 197K Delta miles, my wife has 107K Delta miles that we would like to use.

LSE-CDG (stopover) CDG-MLA (open jaw with a stopover) FRA-LSE

3 nights in Paris
10 days between arrival in MLA and leaving FRA

I would have to seperatly get the flight from MLA to FRA.
If possible I would like to be in business class for the transatlantic flight.

Travel dates are flexible as long as they are between June 23rd and July 24th 2012. The 3 days in Paris could also be cut to 2 days if needed and the flight leaving FRA could be +- if needed.

I would be very apreciative if you could let me know if seats are available and how I could book them. Again, thank you in advance!

Hercomserv, your requirements are very specific. This is a 'How to' thread. If you're not interested in conducting your own search, here is a thread listing paid award search services.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...ices-list.html

Thank you. I will take a look at that.
Thanks!

Wow. So I used the AF tool and found several dates with 2 open business seats at 50k each way on AF and KLM, but when I called DL, they told me that they did not have those seats available for most (not all) of the dates I told them. They kept checking and quoting me the standard ridiculous DL mileage requirements and said they did not have the open seats on KLM. SOME of the dates they did have, but many they did not, and it was always either the outbound or the inbound that was not available.

My experience is that Delta availability matches pretty well to what FlyingBlue shows, so your report is interesting.

If you have specific dates and schedules for AF/KL-operated award flights at FB Classic level in coach or business, try delta.com with those dates (not the calendar) and search by schedule (not price).

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

In addition to 3C's comments, be sure to have the agents search point to point on their end. I have had challenges with them in the past insisting a flight was not available due to an "improper" search on their end.

Good luck.

Ok well, I will call back then and try again. I found about 7 or 8 days out and inbound but the agent said only about 1 or 2 of the days had availability and never on both out and inbound. I tried the DL website and it is a worthless hunk of **** as we all know. I randomly found 100k mile seats once or twice by trying "medium" days that the AF tool said were low. However, several of them still came up at 150k on the DL site.

This is exactly why I switched to UA :). For all their faults, using my miles is easy as pie over there.

Called again. They still said no. They found one day outbound and supposedly only 1 seat on the return, and then tried several other dates and I even gave them the flight numbers and they said no. DL agent told me that they found only coach seats.

I give up. Whatever Delta..you win. Keep my 200,000 miles. I finally got the DL website to bring up 100k mile seats a couple of times on a couple of dates, but after I select the return flight, it kicks me out and says "one or more of your flights just sold out."

Amazing how UA/CO/AS/AA can all get redemption right and DL between the ridiculous lack of lows and broken award calendar/engine just screws it totally up.

Agreed, annoying to see "low" on the calendar and nothing less than 180,000 miles on the results page.

Thursday night I noticed some 100,000 options for a fall trip, so I put a reservation on hold while I checked my schedule. On Saturday I came back for more research, but every flight was now 180,000 or more. Fortunately I had an option on hold, but was angry at the ridiculous game of price gouging 9 months ahead.