Cathay Pacific Asia Miles - Meaning of * after flight number on boarding pass

Some of my CX boarding passes have an * after the flight number, while others do not. There isn't an obvious pattern (it doesn't correspond to transfer vs. stopover, which was my first guess, nor does it have anything to do with class of service or type of ticket or how it was booked). The flight number is sometimes "450 " and sometimes "450*" (the rest of the boarding pass is identical).
Does anyone know the significance of the *, and should we care? Given how methodical CX is in its operation, I presume it has a meaning for either in-flight or ground operation -- but I am mystified as to what it might be.

could it denotes....

Non-smoking flights???

that you provided a FF number???

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Cathay Pacific:
could it denotes....

Non-smoking flights???

that you provided a FF number???

</font>
I thought all flights were non-smoking. The boarding passes all had FF number (in fact the same one, in the same format). Everything else about the boarding pass is identical, which is why this is so mystifying. The only variable is date, which should have no bearing.

My current theory is that the * indicates checked baggage, but I don't have a big enough sample size to verify that.

Wrong. I just checked my boarding passes from last week's TPE&gt;HKG&gt;SFO&gt;HKG&gt;TPE, they all have stars after the flight number, I had no baggage.

An Asterisk (*) after a flight number usually indicates that the service
is a code-share with other oneworld carriers.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by mhtaipei:
Wrong. I just checked my boarding passes from last week's TPE&gt;HKG&gt;SFO&gt;HKG&gt;TPE, they all have stars after the flight number, I had no baggage.

An Asterisk (*) after a flight number usually indicates that the service
is a code-share with other oneworld carriers. </font>
HKG-SFO is a codeshare? With whom? Not with AA, those negotiations (to allow AA to codeshare) are ongoing -- with great difficulty, thanks to Fedex. I was curious, and searched on Expedia/Orbitz/Amex and they all show only CX/SQ/UA as having a non-stop (no code-shares). I know it isn't QF or BA, and I can't imagine AY or IB having such a codeshare. Nor do I recall seeing a codeshare posted on the airport monitors, but I confess, last time I flew HKG-SFO on SQ. HKG does have 5th freedom rights, so I suppose they could. Or can they (since none appear to be code-sharing, and the AA code-share proposal requires some sort of amendment to the treaty)?

The * is an old code meaning non-smoking flight. This was used when some CX flights were none smoking (like the U.S. to HKG) while some were not. I still see it on my boarding passes from time to time.