Missed a good deal because of a ghost itinerary in my profile
I'm looking for some advice from anyone who books award travel with Flying Blue points. I need to book last minute flights (this Sunday) from EDI to IAD. I found a great deal for 51.5K points on KLM (for 2 adults and a toddler). I transferred my AmEx points over and then went to make the booking but couldn't.
Turns out I had a ghost booking in my Flying Blue account from earlier in the day when I went to check the cash price/seat availability and didn't cancel or complete the reservation. (Lesson learned - I won't make that mistake again) By the time I finished on the phone with customer service to get the ghost reservation cancelled, the award flight is now showing at 287K for that itinerary. There are other worse/less convenient itineraries at the low price but none work as well, especially with a toddler. Does anyone know if the lower fare award pricing might be being held and released after some time or if I should just assume someone else scooped in and booked the flights and the good price on the itinerary I want is gone forever? I've never booked award flights with Flying Blue so don't know how the system works.
I need to book something today so I'm not willing to wait to see if things refresh overnight. If I need to go with UA at 40K per person I will but it would be good to save some points if possible since we don't need a non-stop on the way out.