I'm looking to book a flight in J from DCA/IAD to AMS next June and the only availability I can find on delta.com is on Delta metal. I've even looked back in April/May and still see only Delta metal available, even out of other cities (JFK, ORD). Why am I not seeing more KLM or Air France availability? Are they just not giving Delta any seats at all? I can't believe in the 3 months I've looked I haven't found a single outbound flight on KLM or AF.

EDIT: Sorry I didn't clarify, this is for an award booking.

Hmm, I am seeing KLM flights for that route.

Don't have a pic, but see, for example, Sat. June 6 through Sat. June 13 on KLM on the DL site.

Shows up as flight 9447, departing IAD at 5:40pm, arriving AMS 7:15am. $4497.

Alternately I found the flights on google flights, and you can click through and it has an option to book on DL site, that seems to work as well. Also seeing AF one-stop from IAD via CDG.

Sorry, I didn't clarify. This is for an award booking.

+1 on searching through Google Flights first, then either trying to replicate on DL.com or using the click-through. I suspect the DL search engine is programmed to give preference to DL metal for whatever reason, and it absolutely does not show all options that DL is able to ticket.

This restriction doesn't happen so much on simpler US-domestic tickets, where DL metal is really the only option. My guess is that to save processing effort for the website, DL.com truncates the results in some way when someone is searching for int'l itineraries that may have a very large number of options and partner possibilities. They've unfortunately chosen to invest instead in a gaudy graphical interface that is more form than function.

Aah, got it.

Not seeing any direct flights for June on partners.

I did find biz (Virgin upper class or whatever it is called) May 30 to June 6 for 150k miles. Virgin IAD-LHR then KL to AMS. Reverse on the return. $95 in fees.

Was only searching for a single seat.

Ok so ignore my other post.

Just to clear up the obvious first - are you sure you have the "Delta and Partner Airlines" box checked, and not "Delta flights only"?

Yes. I made sure to double (and triple) check that =)

I think I may see where I'm screwing up. It was sorting by Best Match which I think was only giving me Delta flights. I am seeing the IAD-LHR on VS when I sort by Price. Let's see if this does the trick on other dates!

I figured, but you never know

FWIW I'm also having trouble getting anything other than DL flights to show up when searching for just the outbound. However there are some 80k DL-operated flights on June 17 and 23 (via BOS).

IIRC, AF/KL sometimes only release seats to Flying Blue first, and only later to partners. Since we're still right around 300 days out from June 2020, I wouldn't be surprised if they just haven't pushed anything to DL yet.

Or the website could just be broken. There's always that...

I thought maybe they weren't releasing seats to partners until maybe 300 days out like you said, which is why I started looking in April/May, but even in April I hardly see any outbound flights.

On a whim I checked in November/December (where I already have some KL flights booked using DL miles) and also didn't see any outbound there, though there were a smattering of return flights available. Seems fishy enough that I wonder if they're doing some Friday evening inventory updates/maintenance ahead of schedule change Saturday.

I see availability in late Dec/early Jan on outbound. Beyond that, only a couple dates in February. AF/KL mostly seem to release seats to DL during very slow travel demand times. Looks fairly typical to me. Note that these awards (CSMH750) now have a 60-day advance purchase requirement -- so there's zero chance they will have booking inventory close-in/last minute.

How are you getting it to not show any of the DL-metal options? I assume they are still available for all those other dates at 200k RDM or whatever.

Here's what I get when I search WAS>AMS - you can see my search parameters.

Ok, so here's some sketchy business (and leaving my previous post up as photo evidence). I figured out that xliioper'ssearch results are coming up by switching to a nonstop search, since I guess only KL operates nonstop IAD-AMS. That gave me the same 75k results that he/she posted.

So then I got curious and clicked into Dec 23, which shows a 75k result in a nonstop search and an 80k result in an "All Flights" search. The KL nonstop for 75k was nowhere to be found. Only 80k DL with connections. Even worse was Jan 3, which only showed 320k DL redemptions. Both of these dates have 75k nonstop KL available.

Even if you search for the single date directly, and use IAD instead of WAS - basically restricting the search results as much as possible other than specifying nonstop, DL.com will not give you the cheapest and most direct option - instead it will just dump on DL-operated flights at higher prices. You would have to know that nonstop flight is there and specifically look for it in order for the KL flight to appear.

What's even worse is that for Jan 3 in particular, if I restrict to nonstop to find the Jan 3 date, and then click on it from there, the nonstop restriction falls off in the results and I see both the KL direct and a bunch of connections, including a handful of IAD>CDG>AMS options also for 75k (but relegated to the very bottom of the "best match" search results). Ridiculous!