depends a lot on when. If you're talking summer, be careful. Anecdotal summer evidence:We are Delta Connection parents. We have made it back from AMS twice early July(three and 4 years ago, and to a minor market, Hartford, now discontinued, so maybe not of much use). And last year, my son (the pilot) near the end of June couldn't get back from BCN, via any reasonable route, and ended up buying full fare on Air Berlin (va DUS). So this June, WE didn't even try to return non-rev and bought confirmed on Air Transat MRS-YUL. Maybe we are overly cautious, others on this forum have managed to get around in summer. So..I'm not of much use. But it sounds like you may not be interested in summer. Our non-summer experiences have been much better: last November from FRA I had the list of all the flights to the East Coast in my pocket and easily ended up on the first one, Air India to Newark. And 'have returned from NCE (which I recommend) on DL several times, in March and October in the last 3 years. Because of my (admittedly now very old) very bad experience in Mar 2004 returning from Paris CDG (you can probably search for it w. my username & CDG), I haver never since tried to return from CDG, although there are plenty of other members whoi would say we are too paranoid and should go for it once. Good luck!