JFK-BOM Award
 

My 76 year old Dad had knee surgery a few months ago so I am trying to get him and my mom into J for a trip to India (BOM) they need to make. They'd like to go for 3 weeks in Feb 2010. I've been calling Delta over and over and finding absolutely no availability. Using the calender feature I'm still not finding any luck with any of the LOW redemption options. I also tried building a few one ways and I did find a one way to BOM through CDG but no return availability in mid or late Feb.

Should I sign up to expert flyer to help with the search? What are my chances of finding two seats give how close they are to travel?

Thanks!

Give Delta a call and see if they can get anything on partner airlines. In addition to being more accurate than the award chart (which is very flaky), they can also pull up partner inventory (more than the occasional AF/KL flight you might find on delta.com). Jet Airways might be a very good option here - either taking the Jet flight out of EWR, or doing something where you take one carrier to Europe and then connect to a Jet flight out of there.

You have multiple options as the above noted:

Air France through Paris
Jet Airways through Brussels
NW/KLM through Amsterdam
Aeroflot through Moscow

Try expertflyer.com (5 day free trial) to research the options, and then call Delta direct with the flights.

The big challenge is finding 2 seats. With all of those choices you will likely find one seat in biz by piecing together different airlines.

Try your search on NWA website, which seems to find options that are not available on Delta site for travel to India.

I tried that for the OP, but there was no "low" business class availability in either direction in February.

Have you tried JFK-DTW-AMS-BOM? or JFK-MSP-AMS-BOM? Typically more award availability through those cities...

Thanks everyone. Going to try out expert flyer and the search continues!

The gap is on the India leg. I looked at options to BOM & DEL on AK/NW/KL and didn't see any. Aeroflot is worth looking into as is jet airways.

For India look at Kingfisher or Jet.

Kingfisher has a very limited international schedule. If you can find business seats to LHR or Dubai you might find something that will work. Note that expertflyer does not support business awards for kingfisher, only economy.