In case anyone finds this information remotely useful...

331 days in advance of my depature from MCI to ATH, I called into Delta (10 minutes before midnight eastern time) to book my Business Elite award seat. At that time, Delta had opened only 1 BE award seat, and I was able to get that seat on the flight(s) I desired - MCI-ATL-ATH.

331 days in advance of my return from IST to MCI, I called into Delta (10 minutes before midnight eastern time, last night) to book my Business award seat. Delta and Air France had not released any Business award seats through IST, CDG, MXP, FCO nor had any Business seats been sold. From checking asiares.nwa.com, I was able to find World Business award seats on NWA/KLM through AMS that the Delta agent was not able to see. I politely guided her through the flight details and booked the World Busiess award - IST-AMS-DTW-MCI. The trans-atlantic segment is on an A333, so I can now experience the newer seats in World Business. Last time I flew World Business was a few years ago on an older DC-10.

My take away items for folks that don't frequently book award travel: do your research and know all your options, be polite but persistent, just because you're the first to attempt to book at 331 days out (or whatever the magical number) does not mean any award seats will be released for your dates so you have to continually search.

Looking forward to our Windstar cruise of Greece/Turkey!

Where as my other half rolled out of bed this morning and booked a Star Alliance Business award for the same trip with no problems...no research...etc. Go figure...

We use both DL and UA and I've found it's much easier redeeming on STar Alliance partners than Skyteam partners, even with Platinum status.

My TA had a lot of trouble booking BE tickets with miles to any major European hub. Did some pushing and using a ton of miles we have separate tickets -- him Boston - CDG and then back through Rome, and me SFO-CDG and then back from Rome. His was 130k miles and mine 90k, makes no sense. But we did get two "free" tickets for Sept 2008.

We are transitioning to United and Star Alliance. The TA says not to expect it to be much better, but then she acknowledged that Delta was cutting back on the award travel seats. Also, my colleagues/friends have had better luck with Star Alliance.

On the plus side of DL, I was able to get 2 AF Biz tkts on the non-stops from LAX only 3mos out-AF opens up seats more often than some of the other Skyteam members, I've been told. It was a Skysaver award so 90,000mi each.