I just tried to book flights, using my points, for next May 11, from Miami to Rome, and they told me there was nothing available...I find this unbelievable. If anyone is planning to use points, even in the very distant future, you better not procrastinate!

I'm flying to Venice in September 2006 on points. I booked this trip on Delta in early December, 2005. It's a direct flight there and a connection in Milan on the return. I learned when I was trying to book these flights that I had to be very flexible with dates. I fly there on a Tuesday and return two weeks later on a Wednesday - not what I would have preferred but, heck, it's free!

In May/June 2005 I flew to and from Venice on points and, even though I booked well ahead of time, I was only able to get connecting flights.

When I came home, just for the heck of it, I called Delta reservations to ask them for pointers as well as to do a spot check to see what was available on some imaginary future flights.

Just to clarify, this was June 2005 when I did this research for an imaginary trip and there was availability using points to book a round-trip on direct DL-VZ flights just a few months ahead in September 2005. Of course, I couldn't book them because I had just returned but it seemed to me that Delta probably offers more seats as the year progresses - not all of them are available at that 300-or-so-day advance booking date. They seem to come up sporadically all through the year. You just have to hit it right to catch them.

Hope I explained this so it makes sense and I haven't confused everyone

For an exhaustive study on this subject take a look at Flyertalk.com. It seems at Delta, my carrier of choice for award tickets, Skysaver (the best award vehicle) openings are apparently held until purchased and Skychoice seats are not filling the flight. It makes sense. The option is to "waitlist" for flights with extremely loose travel dates.

dkay, don't give up, just keep calling every few days, or at least once a week, and as Annie M said, be prepared to be very flexible with your dates. Altho it's not easy, it can be done, especially if you get an agent who's willing to be helpful.

Yep, it's not a matter of being early on booking, especially with Continental. 330 days out, they don't say okay - we're flying a plane with 120 seats to Rome and 5 of them will be ff seats. What they do is say we're flying a plane with 120 seats to Rome, none of them will be ff seats. Then, you can book using unrestricted miles (i.e., a lot of miles but if the plane has seats available, they're yours).

Every so often they'll look at that 120 seat flight and say, hmmm... we're not selling seats on this flight as fast as we should - let's put one or two seats open for frequent flyers. They'll do this right up to a few weeks out. So you can try this week and nothing and try again in three months and find something.

What we do is call and we don't give dates. I just say, I want to travel to Rome, or Israel or Paris or wherever it is. I'd like the chunk of my visit to be during this specific week, but am able to depart/return on these dates on either end. I'm also open to flying on partner airlines and can depart from these airports. Can you help me find something? So far, we've been lucky and have been able to book a flight but I'm finding flexibility not only on dates but on points of entry and departure and airline help a lot.

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Originally posted by Kim:.......I'm also open to flying on partner airlines.....

I can't remember how that works. If, for example, you're using NWA miles but want to use the miles on a partner airline, do you still have to go thru NWA to book? Or do you have to call the partner airline?

Barb, we have our miles on Continental (a NW partner btw). Four years ago, they transferred miles to Alitalia and then we booked through them. But since they've become members of the same "alliance" now I just call Continental and they book on whichever partner airline works best. I usually end up with two different confirmation numbers though, one for Continental and one from the Partner. After the initial booking, I do all my confirmations and such with the partner airline.

I just booked my outbound flight to Italy for next May using the 330 day rule that I learned here. I am flying a day earlier than planned. The problem was with no flights from London to Venice. Not fromt he states. I thought that would be the easy one! Now I am keeping my fingers crossed I get my return booking when my 330 days hits next week,

If I were flexible in my dates and places to stay then I would wait and see what opens up

Laurie

We used Northwest frequent flyer miles on our last trip to Italy. We flew over on Air France. Nowhere on the Northwest website did the possibility of flying Air France even come up. I think the feeling expressed over and over here is there is no substitute for a helpful airline employee!!

Thanks to advice from Andrew, we were able to book our AA FF miles last spring from Los Angeles to Rome, through London and then used BA on to Rome, all on miles. I think using the person on the phone also helped and was well worth the service fee.

Marcia

Miles drive me crazy - I paid Alaska Air for my flight to Seattle via San Fran - Delta operates the first flight. I have to try to collect my miles separately, BUT, I fly everywhere on frequent flyer miles - I book a year in advance, i compromise on airports, I'm willing to be flexible on where exactly i end up - I'm willing to start a three-city trip, for instance, in any of the three cities and - once I flew to LA via Chicago (I was meeting someone there for dinner and staying one night). It was the beginning of spring break, Easter weekend, and a couple of days before the beginning of Passover, so the whole world was on the move. I had a early flight to O'hare, I allowed myself to be bumped twice and ended up at Midway, but I wasn't late for dinner, and I had vouchers that paid for round trips to Mardi Gras and to Seattle. The real kicker was that i bought my original tickets with frequent flyer miles and paid about $17 in taxes, so I'd say that you can get around pretty well if you plan right.

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I just tried to book flights, using my points, for next May 11, from Miami to Rome, and they told me there was nothing available...

Others have said this but I will repeat as it is important.
1.) It depends on the agent you speak with. If the first one says no, call back and work with someone else. I made reservations two days ago for 5/12--no problem but I wasn't happy with the return. Called back today. First agent couldn't find any alternatives. 10 minutes later I called back and the agent was able to come up with a couple options. So--try, try, try.
2.) What is not available on Monday may be open on Tuesday. Airlines release seats very arbitrarily, it seems.
3.) Don't give up!

We have ALWAYS been been able to get pretty close to what we want. Even calling in the fall and winter can get seats for spring. It is a very frustrating game but one worth playing--or so we have found.

Someone said, maybe in another thread, that they had tried to book a flight using FF miles but that all the FF seats were gone. No, the seats weren't "gone", they probably hadn't even been released yet. So many people don't realize that FF seats are added from time to time. We tried to book FF seats 8 months in advance....no availability. Tried again every week or so and eventually we got the seats! This is definitely a situation where the phrase "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again" applies!

I ended up getting a round trip from Miami/London (Continental, operated by Virgin) two days before we're supposed to meet our friends in Rome, so we will probably take BMI from Heathrow to Naples and do Naples for a couple of days...Ends up being a bonus since I've always wanted to spend time in Naples!