Have any tips for folks who want to book? What exactly to say to push it through?
1. be very consistent, HUCA many times will help eventually get a helpful rep.
2. If booking a multi city reservation, always start with the LY portion first as a separate trip, and if successful add the other legs. The other way around, it's nearly impossible to add on a LY flight to an existing reservation.
3. Convincing the rep to pull up the whole flight inventory, and pricing X or Z for aadvantage miles would work to get it booked. Though, then the ticketing process would knock it out as "not booked with direct access", but still then, you'll be able to get it to be sent over to the LY Liaison, which at that point you're good to go.
4. When a rep is not helpful, don't ask for supervisors, they WON'T be helpful. ask them to go the reference desk (or help desk), which might give you a chance.
Lastly and most important, keep on calling and demand every rep to get this reported to the IT group. Hopefully it'll get fixed shortly.