Wiirachay

Executive Summary in bold.
* BA flights within South Africa can be ticketed without special instructions and without frustration.

After months of frustration trying redeem US award miles for travel on BA flights, operated by ComAir, within South Africa, I finally succeeded this evening, 10/17/14. Multiple agents were able to see and book the flights without trouble and without question.

* How do you calculate mileage required for open-jaw awards? Help!!! Agent and rate desk way of calculating doesn't make sense!

How do you calculate the mileage required for an open jaw, specifically, originating South America going to South & Central Asia, returning to Africa? GRU-BKK-JNB

When I booked a ticket months ago, I was quoted and charged one rate. After I called back and made changes months later, even though the regions remained the same, the rate desk said that the mileage required was originally calculated incorrectly. So, in order to process the changes I wanted, the difference in mileage would've had to be charged to get the "correct" rate. But how they calculated the "correct" rate made absolutely no sense.

Method 1: (Standard practice with other airlines) Half of the sum of round-trip mileage for the outbound and inbound.

50% x (Round-Trip Mileage Between South America and South & Central Asia + Round-Trip Mileage Between Africa and South & Central Asia)
= 50% x (120k + 90k)
= 105k

Method 2: (Used when ticket was originally issued) Maximum of round-trip mileage for the outbound and round-trip mileage for the inbound

max (Round-Trip Mileage Between South America and South & Central Asia, Round-Trip Mileage Between Africa and South & Central Asia)
= max(120k, 90k)
= 120k

"Method" 3: (Used when ticket was re-issued after making changes) Whatever the rate desk said.

My guess behind the "math"
50% x (Round-Trip Mileage Between South America and South & Central Asia + Round-Trip Mileage Between Africa and South America)
= 50% x (120k + 140k)
= 130k

The rate desk person's logic didn't make any sense. She said that the calculation must use South America as the origin/termination points each way. But none of the trips (outbound or inbound) involve traveling between South America and Africa!

Because of the scare availability of the new flights I needed to add, I had to give up on doing a HUACA and decided to let the agent pull out the additional 10k miles. I figured that I could post on FT to get advice to determine whether US Airways was right or if I should call back or write US customer service for a refund in miles.

Please help!!!