iPad missing, unable to check find my on a friend’s device

My girlfriend misplaced her iPad today. Thinking it was stolen, we frantically attempted to get on FindMy so we could see where it was. First I grabbed my iPhone and went to iCloud.com/find and chose ‘use a different apple id’, her password is saved in my passwords app as well as a passkey. I autofilled the password and hit ok, and I got an error message saying “this account does not match the account signed in on your iPhone, please login to your own account”. Not wanting to troubleshoot i grabbed my MacBook. Same process in safari, same error message. Okay, this seems ridiculous, maybe Firefox won’t be able to see my MacOS account details. Wrong. Same error. I grabbed my iPad which is logged into my personal AppleID, not the business one on the iPhone and Macbook. Went to the same site in safari, no autofill. Airdropped the password and passiey over from my iPhone. Attempt to login again and got the same error. Okay, now i’m annoyed. My old iPad is downstairs, its now a full-time home assistant remote and there is no Apple account logged in. I attempt to log my gf in to the iPad, 2FA code required, but I dont have the one other device that can recieve the code with me. Even though I have a passkey, it wants a 2FA code.

What on earth was Apple thinking when they disabled tge ability to login to FindMy on another Apple device!? Is there a workaround? What if the iPad was the only device on her account?

We eventually found the iPad the old fashioned way, by looking around for it but now I am quite disheartened knowing that we are screwed if this happens again and we don’t have the only other device on that account with us.

To make it worse, my account is a RECOVERY CONTACT for her account and it STILL wouldn’t allow me to login. Can anyone suggest a solution i might have overlooked? We don’t have a Windows PC or any other brand phones and i’m not even sure if that would work or not. If I had her set up as a family member I think we would have been okay, but what if it was my friends iPhone that was stolen and we were out and away from his other devices? Seems like a terrible policy change.