Is Continental just impossible to book frequent flier tickets with?? With 103,000 miles, I was really hoping that I had 2 tickets to Europe for next summer. They show zero availability starting June, no matter which city I try. Of course, for 100,000 miles per ticket, no problem. I called today and was told that I just have to keep checking because availability may just pop up at any time. Does that sound right to anyone?

I've used American before, and when I check their site, there are plenty of tickets available at their minimum mileage level.

Any advice for Continental? We're hoping to fly into France or Switzerland.

Call and use a partner airline. CO doesn't release standard awards this far ahead. Most of them are loaded about 4-5 months before flight.

You can use all the Skyteam members - NW, DL, AF, KL, and so, to get to Europe. The website gives you about 1/10 of all the possible seats.

So I just need to call, say, Air France directly to ask for seat availability with my Continental miles?

You have to call Onepass. Only they can book your award miles.

Do some homework and check possible flights and connections BEFORE you call. And expect to take a while for them to check all inventories on the various airlines.

But Air France and KLM may be the key. Delta as well.

I called Continental in January for July reservations via Air France using my FF miles and had no problem. Maybe a year is too early.

Thank you both for your help. beaupeep, were you able to select your tickets with Air France at the 50,000 level?

I just called Continental and the agent said that there have been no tickets available at the selectpass level for this entire summer that she could recall. However, this can't be true since beaupeep was able to pick some up in January. I also had her check Air France as well any other partner. I find this frustrating since when I look at the AA site, they have so much availability. I'm trying to get this together because we're hoping to pair off 2 and 2, using AA and CO.

We're flying LAX-CDG, then ZRH-LAX. US Airways is pricing this at $968 (next summer travel). Doesn't that seem like a very good fair? Perhaps I'll want to skip CO and hope for better use of my miles with them

Dang. Fare...

You have to keeping checking. I couldnt use miles for the dates I was going, but my brother used miles for for August travel on Continental. He booked in February. So, for travel next summmer, you are better off waiting until after the new year. We ended up purchasing tickets on Alitalia in February because they were having a sale for $750 RT - which was a great price for summer travel. I don't care to fly Alitalia, but that's a whole other story, haha.

There are certainly award travels available on CO or one of the partners throughout the summer. Just limited supplies.

Using 50,000 miles for in exchange for a $900+ tickets is not a bad deal. I'll call again and have them check all partner airlines once again.

Again, you will not find any CO standard awards for travel next summer right now.

Also, for June travel, it's also too late to get it on a partner now. Many people call the day those seats are first available, at 330/331 days out. That means sometime this past July. Now it's almost the end of August.

Meaning, right now is too late for partners, and too early for CO awards.

I have recently found tickets for next summer! If you have Continental and are traveling to Europe next summer, there are flights now to choose from. We ended up with partner Air France, and I'm very happy with that (free champagne on the way to Paris, what can beat it?). We are flying Alaska LAX to Seattle, then AF to Paris(this flight is still available through much of Aug.), and a direct flight home from Paris, again on Air France.