PHL

I'd been hearing about the Star Award search tool on ANA's web site so I went and registered for an account and found the search to be very good. At least it gives you the 3 possible scenarios - seats available, seats can be requested or seats not available. Plugging in various dream vacations to Pacific, Asian and Australian destinations for dates 6-8 months out, i was able to find biz/first with a little bit of flexibility, and almost always award availability.

So then I plugged in PHL-CDG for next July 1 to July 10. The ANA tool showed biz available on 7/1 but not 7/10. So I went to the USAirways web site Dividend Mile redemption and plugged in the same cities/dates. Looks like we have a match! There is a 40,000 Envoy award seat available on the 7/1 date that ANA's site showed Star Availability. The return would be 80,000(full unrestricted award), which also matches with what ANA's tool said (* award not available on 7/10).