How to use the ANA site to find FF seats on Star Alliance partners
Kurt ... it is a little confusing. Hope this helps.
Register free with ANA if you haven't done it and get an ID number and password. Then go to this url to
enter the ID and password and click on 'next':
https://aswbe-i.ana.co.jp/p_per/sky_ip_per_en/preAwdSearchLogin.do
That will take you to another page where you click on the line that says:
Use Star Alliance Member Airlines ... then it takes you to another page.
Now you enter your desired
departure and return date (about 330 days from the
return date is best)...where you are
departing 'from' and where you want to go to...entering in the country, city, and airport in both departure and arrival. You also enter in the
number of FF tickets you are looking for ... the more tickets you ask for the harder it is to get good results. I sometimes search for only 'one' seat and then go back to see if they have more on those days. Before you leave this page ... if you are just going to one location check
'next' but if you are returning from another location from where you went click on
'flight search' button instead so you can tell the site the info they need on the next page.
Then click on 'next'...and
now you'll see the results of your search. On this page you'll see
3 columns - first class, business class, economy. They may all be blank indicating on the departure date there are no FF seats available.
You can tell if there's an available flight as it will be a colored box .. usually more of them economy than business. Scroll down to see if there any suitable ... if not, you'll have to
click on the arrows (left side of the boxed area)
to the next day, or previous day, to see if anything changes...and click click click until you find something. When you do, click on the box and it will then allow you to do the same with the return flights. Note that there are 3 class and 2 class airplanes - 2 class is usually just first and economy and biz class FF amounts are used for first in this case as there is no alternate. First class seats are usually nicer on 3 class airlines for the extra FF miles.
When you find what you want, take a note as to flight numbers, airline partners, times, etc. as you won't be able to book them on the ANA site if you don't have points there ... you have to call UA (for example) or where you have your FF miles to tell them what flights are available, dates, etc. and they'll think you're amazing!

It makes their job easier...but ask them if they can find anything better than those as they often do, and are better at finding partner airlines than you can on the ANA site.
Further note: if you find the flights you want, now you have to go to the Marriott site and see what hotels you can get for the dates you want so you'll be able to marry up your flights with hotel dates - remember that the arrival date may be different from the flight day, so book your hotel on arrival day. This also tells you what hotel category it is so you can order the right 'air+hotel' package with 120,000 FF miles.
Have fun ... sometimes frustrating fun, but if you work it you'll be OK. Play with it -- you can't book anyway so there's no risk you'll get a ticket you didn't want.
An easier but not always as successful is to the your UA rep to do the legwork and find flights available -- but she can't help you marry up the hotel part of the flight and they have time limits on how long they will hold the tickets. In addition, you must have the FF miles in your UA account before they'll even hold it -- AA will hold them but they usually charge more FF miles for the same flights as UA (at least for now).
Brian