Originally Posted by
ymmot73
I wouldn't say a waste of time. Tedious, yes. But worth it. Today I booked LH 419 (Ord-FRA) and LH 710 (FRA-NRT) next week in First Class on both flights. There were many calls over the course of 2 hours to decipher out the phantom from real seats, but clearly worth the time. And since the ANA tool can't be used within 7 days, UA was helpful if not perfect
The ANA tool certainly can be used within 7 days (though it is 3 business days now), you just need to do the search in reverse using the same days for departure and return. So if you want to see what ANA has for LAX-FRA for tomorrow, you would put in FRA-LAX with the Dep and Return as 6/22. The FRA-LAX segments will show up as dashes since it is not bookable due to the 3day rule, but the LAX-FRA segments will show up. Been doing this for over a year now! This same technique works as well on the 7day availability option that ANA introduced.
Of course UA and AP are good for showing some routings that ANA does not show unless you go segment by segment, and of course 2+ stops segments as well.
RCK