I am looking at a possibility of getting a decent amount of DL miles, thus I can use them on ST awards.

I have been wanting to go to PPT for a long time and it looks like Air France flies there and is a ST member.

I am new to the ST area, so please be gentle...but how do you find out about award availability without actually calling in???

I might even think about a Maldives flight...

Anyone having any advice, either on how to check or advice on the destination....or even advice if I am wasting my time with this please let me know!!!!

You're not wasting your time at all, as PPT is a viable reward option. You don't mention if you want to go in Y or J, but both are viable options. The LAX-PPT route doesn't fly daily, so that will affect your ability to find seats there. On the flip side, you might be able to force-overnight in LAX if you want to add that to the vacation plan.

SkyTeam does not appear to have any member-coded flights into MLE. You might be able to use miles on EK, though I'm not sure if they are a DL partner; they definitely are a CO partner. SQ also might get you there on a DL award.

As for availability, you can try www.seatcounter.com. I believe that AF J awards book in to "O" class. It actually looks like the flight next Thursday (8/16) is showing O9 in Seat Counter, so either there are a lot of seats available for reward, seatcounter is wrong or I have the wrong fare bucket.

Last time I called in to Dl for the LAX-PPT flight they were pretty good about checking dates and working the system to see what they could find. They are used to it.

Thanks for the info!

I was hoping for J, but I probably would take Y if I had to.

This would be for 2 people, not sure if that matters. For SA there always seems to be a single seat, which sorta kills a trip for 2 to PPT on miles.

I will have a peek at seatcounter.com, thanks again!

I have been successful in booking the PPT trip on behalf of a friend using (his) miles for 2 in J, so it is definitely possible. And I only called 4-5 months in advance, so it isn't completely unreasonable to do even if you aren't at 330 days out.

The ungrateful SoB decided that he couldn't be flexible one day off his desired itinerary and ended up paying to fly on Air Tahiti Nui instead, but that's a whole different story.

I did two in J on AF on LAX-PPT and other than having to call a lot, it worked out and is definitely doable. I used CO points (but DL should be no different). Good luck! My best suggestion is to just keep trying. If you can get one in J, go for it, and then keep trying for the second.