Hi --

we have to use the same tool where I work. I've found that one of the biggest problems with it is that it really gets hung up on the "+/-" time thing. The more "+/-" time you give it, the crappier the options really are. Seems counterintuitive, but for whatever reason that's what I've found.

So what I end up doing is paying out of pocket for expertflyer.com and using their routing rules, availabilities, fares, etc., and then constructing the trip myself in cliqbook being as specific as to times as possible. Our version of cliqbook won't flag you as "out of policy" if the policy-compliant choices don't make any business sense -- and "business sense" is defined as what you tell it. So, if you have the following options:

MSP-LAX on NW departing 11am
MSP-ORD-LAX on UA departing 12:05pm

and you want the MSP flight, tell it departing 11am +/- 1 hr and it won't even bring up the UA flight for consideration.

I most recently did this with an ORD-SFO on AA where I wanted to reroute through DFW. Although the NS and the SFO-DFW-ORD leg departed SFO at the same time, I chose by "arrival" and picked the through-DFW one, and it didn't yell at me about policy violation.

Now, hotels are another story... how about the two preferred options, one for $199 and one for $279 -- and the $199 is a nicer property -- and it flags me as out of compliance for not choosing the $279 one!