Its been a few years since I looked into this, and I studied only one airline, but here is what I found. Available seats seemed to sell out as soon as they were made available, which was often almost a year in advance. However, some airlines seemed to release seats a few at a time, so they might appear four or six months in advance. Strangely, there seemed to be good availability within a few days of the flight, but I was never able to bring myself to take advantage of that, since other parts of our ventures had to be reserved before that.

A couple of caveats: things are always changing and what worked last year may not work this year. And one thing that has definitely changed is that the airlines have cut back the number of flights to achieve higher occupancy, which I suspect may make it harder to get a ticket with miles.

Since you will have to get tickets with two accounts, I would not book on-line, as it may be as you feared that one account could get a ticket and the other not, or you might accidentally pick different flights for the two accounts. In this situation, I would call the airline, explain your situation, and let them work their magic. If they can't do it, no one can.

Redeeming airline miles for travel can be challenging. It can be hard to find available seats when you want them, it can even harder to find two available seats, there can be extra charges, etc.

There are are some factors to consider in terms of getting the most value for your miles. For example, I used to fly home from Toronto to Vancouver every year for Christmas. The Toronto-Vancouver route is quite expensive, and even more expensive at Christmas. There usually are delays due to crowds and weather. Instead of buying a plane ticket, I used to use miles to get a business class ticket - a particularly good deal on Air Canada because an economy ticket was 25,000 miles (for cross-Canada) and business was only 40,000 miles (less than double the economy class ticket). I got a super-comfortable seat on what was going to be an expensive, long and delayed flight.

These days, I usually save my miles to upgrade my flights. For example, I buy an economy ticket to fly to San Francisco from York (long flight) and upgrade the ticket with miles so that I can fly in First. For example, I'll pay a $375 ticket to San Francisco and upgrade one or both legs for 15,000-30,000 miles. One of the best "miles values" I've ever experienced is upgrading from Premium Economy to Business lie-flat beds on trans-Atlantic flights on British Airways. For 25,000 miles (the same number of miles as the miles needed to fly from New York to Chicago), I could convert my premium economy seat (New York to London, costing about $1500) into a $5000 business class flight. (Of course, I had to be willing to pay $1500 out of my own pocket.)

In deciding how to use your miles, you might want to check the prices for the flight you're interested in and see if a flight purchased with $ is relatively cheap or relatively expensive. Typically, you need the same number of miles for a 500 mile flight and a 2000 mile flight if your departure and arrival cities are both in North America. While Savannah or Jacksonville might be a place you want to visit, a miles flight might not be the best value.

It is usually much easier to get one free flight instead of two. So sometimes a good option is to pay for one flight and use miles for the other. Then you have miles to use on a second trip where again, you buy one ticket and use miles for the other.

It's usually easier to get mid-week flights than weekend flights, so if you have flexibility with your travel plans, there's a greater chance of getting tickets.

Thanks, you've given me some good things to think about!

There are lots of rules of thumb on the use of FF miles. Many people (myself included) generally try to get a "value" of at least 2.5c to 3c per mile out of any redemption. In other words if a trip "costs" 25,000 miles, I try to use miles when the equivalent dollar cost would be in the $500 - $750 range. As an example of how this works, say you wanted to splurge on a business-class round trip to Europe, which would "cost" 100,000 miles. If you look at fares, you'll see that it's seldom cheaper than $3000 - $4000 to purchase that ticket for money, hence the value of each mile you redeem is 3c - 4c. Great leverage, considering you probably "paid" something like 1c - 1.5c per mile (through credit card annual fees, merchant markups etc.) without knowing it.

Using miles for upgrades can be a good deal, or it can be a lousy deal, depending on the amount of the "co-pay" charged by the airlines, which can be very stiff on some domestic, and most overseas itineraries, depending on the airline. Also some airlines (Delta is the big culprit here) don't let you upgrade on the cheapest fares, only when you're ticketed in more expensive fare "buckets" in the first place. Again, a little homework and number-crunching won't hurt.

As far as making the bookings, if all the flights are on one airline (e.g. Delta) you can usually make the reservations online and save a phone charge. If the flights involve partners (say you wanted to fly to Alaska using Delta's partner, Alaska Airlines) then you'd need to phone Delta for that booking.

And regarding availability, most airlines release seats into redemption inventory in dribs and drabs - not all at once, and not all at the first or the last minute. The practice of "revenue management" - how much to charge for seats, when to let them go for mileage redemptions, etc. - is an advanced class at Hogwarts.

have done Delta a bunch I just go to delta.com

And follow the prompts to the redeem awards for skymiles screens

Found it to be pretty easy.

Their fees are about twice as much as some others

They do tend to fill up quick for the econo cheap mile seats

So book as soon as you can.

For more information than you could ever use visit Flyertalk.com.

You need to find out about fees and other restrictions. Here are the questions that need to be answered (I am not a Delta flyer and can't answer them:

1) What is the fee, if any, for changing the dates on an award ticket?
2) What restrictions are there (carriers/routes) if you change dates?
3) What is the fee if you cancel an award ticket and have the miles redeposited into your account?
4) What is the fee for booking an award over the phone?
5) Does Delta have partners that fly your route and, if so, do those flights appear when you do an online search?

Things to consider re those questions:
(5) If Delta has partners that fly your route then it might be best to call to make reservations and pay the phone fee if the partner flights don't show up on the online award search.

(1) FF programs usually allow changes of dates on award tickets wtihout any fees.

(2) The restrictions for this might require flying on the same carrier(s) on the same route. This means that if you book today for the available dates and, come September, you have to change dates then you might not find availability on your carrier(s) route while there is availability on other carriers/routes.

(3) The redeposit fee comes into play if you decide not to take the trip OR if you have to change your dates and route/carrier. Changes to reoute/carrier involve reticketing, not just reservation changes. If you never get the dates that you want in February, then you could cancel the reservations and hold onto the ticket (without redepositing the miles). You would then be able to make new reservations at a later date for the same carrier/routing and probably not pay a fee. The ticket would be good for a year after the date that it was issued (not date of travel).

Call the airline and use an agent if you don't see the schedule you want online. An agent might be able to offer you more options even though it comes at a price.