Just had a depressing session checking Bestfares.com ATL snooze fares against actual seat availability from now through year-end on ITA's 30-day grid. I can't remember a time since I started using those tools where I'd see as many published low fares with NO seats available. No luck cross-checking the airline sites, either.

Example: ATL-MLI at $109 RT on CO. Looks great but couldn't find any availability for all of Dec. UA also had ATL-FLL at $138 (nice if you can run through ORD), but no seats. Also found a number of cases where others had published matching fares but only DL or FL nonstops actually had seats, defeating the purpose if you need to zig-zag and run up miles.

Maybe they'll release some seats on these and others, but I guess the upshot is that seats are looking very tight due to holiday-demand-meeting-capacity-cuts on the majors. Topping off accounts with a last RT in December may be the toughest it has been in quite some time in many places.

Maybe other places have it better, but I haven't seen something like this in years.

I got PHX-PVD for $123+, so I consider myself lucky.

I just did a BOS-DTW-CLT run for 128.. was the best I could find (I also needed only few miles)

try heading to china from SFO. more options

Just found BOS-SFO, 5,408 total base miles, for $169.40 all in for the first weekend in December. Checked availability, even though I can't go (and don't need to); it's really there. More in MR forum.

Posts, like some in response to the OP, which give fares for various itineraries but never mention the carrier are of limited helpfulness. Please identify the carrier along with the itinerary and fare.

Take a look at the Mileage Run forum.

Even worse availability now than when I first posted, though as of today many of the sale fares had expired or had been pulled. But it's pretty cruel when an airline that flies from here to its A, B and C hubs will do the sale fares but have no sale seats whatsoever on any of the first flights to any of the hubs through year-end. Very unusually busy (if that's what it is).

Sorry I didn't here, but the OP was discussing airlines in general rather than a specific one. The title of the referenced thread title in the MR forum identifies the airline. (To remove the suspense: it was AA, you had to book last week.)

In his lament about a dearth of MR possibilities, the OP mentioned CO and UA itineraries and fares, and alluded to DL and FL too. Can you say which carrier(s) posts #2, 3 and 5 were referring to? What point is there to mention of particular itineraries and fares without identification of the carriers?

Well, I broke through with ATL-DTW $129 RT all-in UA on a spot special. Could go as low as $106 on the S fare, but not good availability. They're probably mad at Northwest over something and could pull the fare at any time.

Overall, still quite a drought, though. Also noticing some really high fares on the busiest travel days.

Best I have seen is on SONG if you are in NY or BOS, DL is not too bad and surprisingly going to SEA on NW has been fairly cheap. Did BOS-SEA RT for $189. The wife and I are in a pickle this year and need a ton to keep FB Platinum. If anyone sees a USA-Asia RT deal let me know!

The availability drought continues: CO posted an ATL-MFE (McAllen, TX) at $118 RT, but on L class with NO availability for the next month. Didn't post it to Mileage Run after seeing that. Gone now.

Also, it's cheaper now to get to Florida from some Northeast cities than from ATL, thanks to competition.

DL had an ATL-AMS that priced around $384 total, but also scarce seats in January and it lasted less than 24 hours. Europe fare all-in prices still look too much in $500s from here.

The discussion of specific mileage run itineraries are traditionally only posted in the "MR" forum. MilesBuzz is a legit home for a macro analysis on how high fares are affecting this activity. Please keep the topic generic.