I have really been noticing some strange appearances on the reward booking engine in the last few days ...

The most obvious was when running an intl search, the second flight of each choice wouldn't show anything but the dates and times -- no flight #, no city, nothing.

And today, a CO agent told me about a new issue:

I had a reserveration on hold for an intl flight but no matter what I did, I couldn't view the reservation online.

She explained that agents put some type of character called an "arnk" which they nicknamed "AR-RUNK" to indicate I was flying an open jaw itinerary. As soon as she removed the arnk, I was able to IMMEDIATELY view it online.