I am really heaving hard times with the search. According to the FAQs, use of an asterisk should work (oh blessing!).
I would like to search for Meli* in forum titles, because sometimes it's Melia and sometimes it's Meliá and because I am a smart user, I dare to hope that I can avoid two searches. But searching for Meli* in forum titles gives no results. Neither does Melia or Meliá work :confused:.
Could somebody please open my eyes?
Thanks

Best way to search FT is use " Melia site:flyertalk.com " in google
Searching on the ibrands software is limited

Adding quoation mark to your key-word searches...
 

When using FT Search, the more effective way for a key word search is to put the key word in "" (double quotation mark), aka typing "Melia" or "Meliá", than using asterisk. I got tons of results when searching seperately for "Melia" & "Meliá", in both thread title only and Search Entire Posts. You do have to perform 2 searches though since Melia and Meliá are 2 different words that render 2 sets of different results.

Hope it helps!

I received 49 results for Melia when searching for titles only on FlyerTalk — without using quotes.

Could you please give more details about how you searched so that I may further assist you?

I believe the use of wildcards in search is no longer possible on FlyerTalk. The closest thing I know of is to go to google search and use the Boolean OR function:

Click the Search pulldown in the menu bar near the top of the page
Click Google Search in the pulldown box
Make sure the radio button for flyertalk.com is selected
Type the following string in the search field: Melia OR Meliá OR Melias
(Note the word OR must be in all caps)

Otherwise, just do separate searches.

Good luck!

The search term is:
Melia OR Meliá
So this is a boolean OR, because I want to avoid two searches.

The following search term also does not give anything:
Meli*

@Google search: I can use wildcards here, but I can't restrict the search to thread titles only, can I?
Thanks

The * used to give wildcard searches; but it currently seems to be nothing more than a superfluous character.

I received the same results as you with Meli*, which is nothing. As a test, I then attempted Star* as a search term. In the past, I would have received results for Starwood and Starpoints; but in this case, I only received the same results which I would have received if I used Star instead of Star*.

I do not believe that you can restrict Google search to titles of discussions only. I suppose that is the tradeoff.

I personally would like the ability to search images on FlyerTalk using Google search; but I have not found a way to do that.

I will contact someone from Internet Brands to hopefully participate in this discussion to let us know what can be done; what used to be functional but is not anymore and for what reason; and what is possible to implement in the future.

Thanks a lot.
No matter what question, I am sure there is already a thread about it somewhere in the depths of these forums. A powerful search functionality (and I consider wildcards a must for this) would be very handy for finding it...

Looking into the issue with FT specific search.

Regarding google - it can be targeted to only search a specific forum or a specific thread.

Examples of Google query (without quotes):

" site:flyertalk.com inurl:forum/information-desk/ technical "

Specific thread search:

" site:flyertalk.com inurl:/forum/information-desk/676224-using-search-feature-flyertalk-definitive-thread technical "

is there a table showing what all the single character fare types represent?

If I understand your question correctly, caribconsult, fare types typically vary by airline and are not universal — so, no.

Moreover, there are occasionally times where fare types of an airline are added, eliminated or changed...

First, I don't see the Show Threads vs. Show Posts option. Is this info outdated?

Second, when I hit go, I do see post-snippets within the thread containing the search term, but I don't know how to find the complete post. Clicking on the snippet always takes me to the main thread page, and it is difficult to find a particular post if the thread is 50 pages long.

When I click on Search right now. there are two radial buttons, Show threads and Show Posts, so I'm not sure why you're having problems.

This is what I see: http://imgur.com/a/mQhlS

That's odd.

If you click on advanced search, do you see "Show Threads" versus "Show posts"? If you click Show Posts, in the search results, do not click on the title of the thread, but rather the first line of text in the message, which should be hyperlinked in italics under the name of the poster. That should bring you to the specific post.

I do not see Show Threads or Show Posts in advanced search. Here's what my advanced search looks like: http://imgur.com/a/8uYqw

I'm using Chrome on a mac.

Congratulations, elexhobby — you found an error which has stood the test of time for nine years; and I have edited the content accordingly.

Show Threads makes absolutely no sense when you are searching for content within a thread; so you will not find that option — never have, never will.

The radial buttons to which Adam1222 is referring will only appear when you are searching multiple threads and not just content within a thread.

I hope this makes sense; and I apologize for any inconvenience my error caused.

Um, what is a milepost, in this context?

Thank you for explaining this. I was excited to read it, as it solves the problem I was having.

Well, almost. It works just as you said: "Only threads or mileposts with both Park and Lane will appear as a result." However, Park and Lane do not need to appear together, or even in the same post for a thread to be returned. (In my brief testing, the terms did both appear on the same page, which is way better than both terms appearing anywhere in the thread.)

Milepost is a term I made up long ago for content posted on FlyerTalk, rather than simply post. I thought it was more appropriate for a site such as FlyerTalk.

Back when what you referred to was written almost 17 years ago, what I wrote was the case. The search feature on FlyerTalk has improved over the years; so what I wrote may be slightly outdated at this point...

Fair enough.
In case it wasn't clear, the main purpose of my post was to thank you for providing useful information. I had seen the information was old; it is still correct as written (as far as I can tell). It comes close to solving the problem that you mentioned, and I hoped to inform others, who might have misinterpreted (as I did) what you posted all those years ago, that it returns instances where the two terms are not adjacent. As far as I can tell, the improvements to the search features on FlyerTalk do not include a full solution to your example problem (Park Lane), but the plus sign is a real time saver even if it does not return only what I had hoped.

Thanks again.

Your assistance, Canarsie, has stood the test of time. :tu: :cool:

Too bad I am unlikely ever to make it out to Brooklyn. :(

That is one of the sadder things I've read. (That's not a dig at Brooklyn; it would be sad never to make it out of anywhere.)

Thanks for chiming in Canarsie, because I wasn't sure what that referred to!

This section of the FlyerTalk forum is called Miles & Points, and I think it was even called that 17 years ago.

And even some airlines, including Southwest Airlines, use points, not miles.

So I think perhaps a better term might have been milespointspost.

Milepost seemed like a confusing term when the example being quoted above was searching for a hotel, not an airline. I know of know hotel programs that call their currency "miles".

Seems like a discussion of the pros and cons of a term someone used in a post 7 years ago is not particularly helpful to anyone, or relevant to the topic of the thread.

Is it still possible to search within a specific forum? I worked out how to search for a keyword within individual threads, but can no longer find the search function to search a keyword in posts, within different threads

​​​​​​In "advanced" search, if you scroll down, you'll see the option to select a specific forum instead of "all open forums"
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...020cd89fc1.jpg

Thanks! I see if you click forums up top there is a drop down to Search forum too.

Including and Excluding Forums in Your Search
 

When conducting a search of the entire site of FlyerTalk, you might not want to include some forums — for example, the OMNI forum, to which not all FlyerTalk members have access.

To exclude all three OMNI forums, copy and paste the text below:

The numbers at the end of the text above reflect the number which is assigned to the forum. For example, 457 is OMNI; 652 is OMNI/PR; and 699 is OMNI/Games. To find those numbers, simply go to the forum...

...and you will find the forum number at the end of the Universal Resource Locator; or URL.

You can also include a forum with the following text, using the three OMNI forums once again as an example and using the word include instead of exclude as an example:

Try it for yourself!

Has the ability to search a specific forum been removed? When I'm looking at a forum, the only search I see is at the very top of the page. When I click the magnifying glass at the top of the page, it opens a giant "Search FlyerTalk Forums" prompt, but this search seems to be across the site and not the forum.

When beginning a search, by clicking the magnifying glass, the initial search is as you describe.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...44794f1cd9.jpg
From there, near the top right corner (above), one has to click on "Advanced >>" (in blue ink, as a link).

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...2ed3289282.jpg
One can input the same terms. But if you scroll down to the bottom of that page, you will see an option to search specific forums, "Search in Forum(s)".
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...15e64cfc94.jpg
The default is "Search All Open Forums". But if you click on that line, you will be given a list of all open forums:

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...4d8442f32e.jpg
Again, "Search All Open Forums" is the default. From there, one has to uncheck that and pick one or more other particular forums for greater specificity.

If quoting this post, please do not copy all four pictures! :)

The mobile skin has a different search interface than the desktop version. The desktop version has a "Search this Forum" link at the top right of the threads list. Individual threads have the same feature.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...650f04746c.png

Thanks, SPN Lifer. This works, although it's a really cumbersome, nonintuitive way to search a single forum.

Thanks, TWA884. The screenshot you posted is what I'm accustomed to seeing, complete with the "Search this Forum" link. However, the screen I see now in my desktop browser is pasted below. The Search this Forum funciton isn't there. I must say I much prefer TWA884's screen layout over this one!

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...fa92b22eea.png

It would appear that you inadvertently switched to the mobile skin on your desktop. Please refer to the following thread in the Technical Support and Feedback forum: