I have been trying for about 2 months to book upgraded tickets Atlanta to Joburg next June and the Delta representatives keep telling me there are no seats available (that the seats have not been released), but that business class has only four seats taken...has anyone had the same experience or does anyone have any suggestions; we have not had this problem in the past. They would be happy to sell me a premium economy class ticket on the off chance that seats were later released though.

They only allot so many seats for frequent fliers. It doesn't matter if the rest of the plane is empty. Yes, I have seen it before.

Same experience here. I tried to book upgrades for July 2011 the FIRST day seats were available. Upgrade seats were gone the first day.

My friend and I used 100% Sky Miles for our trip in August. We booked the trips the first day the return flights were available. We had no problems going 100% miles. Maybe this is different?

Last night, after much conversation with several different agents I finally found one agent that was honest and was told that upgradeable seats had been available since the first available booking date (331 days before departure) but on each of the 9 documented times my wife called about these seats, she was told that no seats were available. So I guess it somewhat depends on which agent you get on the phone. Graybird, we were trying to use our miles to upgrade from a premium economy fare to business class, we finally did as you did and went 100% miles in economy...seems to me that from a business standpoint it makes more sense to take cash for a ticket and then allow the passenger to upgrade with miles to a seat that might otherwise go unsold.

Bigguy,

Yeah, from a business stand point, I don't understand why they wouldn't upgrade you with the points after your ticket purchase.

We selected business class and had no problems getting our seats using the miles.

Who knows?

If you have enough miles, it is well worth it to go ahead and get those Business class seats. I've done the economy class seats before and have to admit my thoughts of long plane flights have changed considerably after being able to get 8 hrs of solid sleep while lying flat.