obviously some people have better luck than others...we've used AA miles to fly from houston to SXM via miami many times, in first/business, using the lowest point requirements, and on the exact dates we wanted...the key has been looking for our seats as early as possible, usually 330 days in advance

but we now prefer to use our points for trips to europe, as we feel we get more bang for our buck (points)...again, we've had no trouble getting the seats we wanted on both AA and United <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Clever.gif" alt="" />