Ana *a tool appears to be down
 

Can't seem to request *a award availability. Hopefully this is temporary.

they made some changes some months ago - you should be able to find threads that show you the workaround to still be able to search *A airlines

Working without a problem for me.

Hmmm, I'd been using it for years. Last time was about a week ago. Perhaps my zero mileage balance is a cause?

After I log in, the ability to choose a *A search is shaded out.

Do the ANA internation flight awards first and attempt to look for a ANA flight. I always use JFK-NRT.

When you hit the next button a new page will show up with availability for that flight, but if you look down at the bottom of the page there will be a button for Use Star Alliance Member Airlines. Click on that and you should be good to go.

Rich

I appreciate it. Are these extra steps par for the course now?

looks like it (until they close that loophole too) been like that for months so surprised you were able to get it to work last week...must have been a glitch

It is worth getting some points in there just to have the ANA tool...car rental, hotel or similar works best

No need to orphan points there. Just do an ANA search (GMP-HND works nicely) or use the GreaseMonkey script. I spent a couple hours on it this morning searching out an awesome award LAX-HND-ICN-SYD//SYC-BKK-CDG-FRA-JFK-PHX all in F/C for 4 pax and I have no miles in my account at all.

Well, I now can't get it to work for routes that ANA doesn't service (LHR-FRA, for example!)

you need to search an ANA route - such as ORD-NRT then when it shows the results for that availability the "Search *A airlines" option will appear and you can click on that and then search your *A route....you need to do the ANA search first before you can check a non-ANA route

WOW! ^

Nice! Which FF program did you use for the award?

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry9630/5.0.0.591 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

That award was for an AC mini-RTW. Not sure if he booked it or not as he got a job offer around the same time as I found the seats, but it proves that cool awards are still out there, even if you need 4 seats on the same plane. :cool:

What is this *A tool & where do I find it? Do I need to open an ANA frequent flyer account just to use it? Thanks!