ehe123

I am trying to purchase an award ticket in Delta One to HKG in June, 2019. The dates I want for outbound and return are within the 330 day window, so that is not the problem. I can get a 170,000 mile fare from RIC-ATL-ICN using KE36 for ATL-ICN, and a similar return ICN-ATL-RIC. If I try doing just ATL-ICN and return it prices out at something like 380k miles! The Delta system shows 1 seat available for this fare on the day that I want, select it for the outbound, it shows one seat available at this fare for the return and I select that. It takes my credit card information (something like $90 in addition to the miles), but when I go to purchase it I get:
We're sorry. The fare for the flights you selected just sold out. Please search again to view and select alternate flights.#100503A
I have done this four or five times, same result, even using different days. I called the Diamond line and we spent 1.5 hours going over this. They could reproduce it and never book the flights. The agent I spoke with called some supervisory desk, and they spent 20 minutes trying to get around it. The final message was no one understood the problem, and perhaps I should just try again tomorrow!

flyerCO

It probably falls during a KE blackout date. I believe most if not all June is included. There's inventory, but it fails to book due to blackout.

ehe123

That possibility was first suggested by the Delta agent, but we excluded it since certain days did show up as not available. Further, within this period I could book a separate ICN-HKG-ICN fare for 60k in business.

flyerCO

KE blackout dates dependent on the o/d of the flight. Ie US may be blacked out but Asia not. Also blackout dates are dependent on the partner, and KE can offer awards for their program, but blackout others.

May 12 - JULY 16th are blackout dates on US/ICN routes

mnbp

SkyMiles Membership Guide & Program Rules

TerryK

As posted by mnbp, you are within blackout period. There are several threads about this issue and DL never fixed it. You can search and book but it will not ticket KE flights during blackout period.

ehe123

The story has a happy ending. It only took 1.5 hours, but a wonderful agent on the Diamond line said that this is clearly a mistake and Delta should honor this fare, so got me a connection DTW-ICN and back on the A350 for 170k miles (which appeared as 490k when I searched).

TerryK

A poorly trained DL agent worked in your favor.

flyerCO

Agree. HUACA till agent does what you know is outside policy. This is what caused companies to eventually clamp down on employee discretion.

ehe123

Clamping down on employee discretion is also what caused United Airlines gate agents to call the police to forcibly drag a seated passenger off an oversold plane. This caused United quite a bit more than a larger compensation offered to passengers who would volunteer for another flight.

flyerCO

You're really comparing a situation where there was no clear policy ( IDBing an already boarded passenger for last minute walk up crew ) with your situation? ( clearly defined blackout dates that you didn't want to comply with )

All you did was 1)likely get an employee punished and 2)give ammo to taking away agent discretion. Sorry, but this is nothing like UA situation and you're reaching to justify.