My mother is looking to fly LAX-HKG-LAX in July. She and I have been punching nwa.com for weeks without any luck finding a 60k award. Then we tried other origins, and voila, plenty of 60k options (bookable online, unlike anything involving KE or CZ) if she flies SAN-LAX-NRT-HKG or SBA-LAX-NRT-HKG (i.e. one extra segment on AA Eagle)!

I'm not going to ask ground transport questions here, but here are a few I have regarding NW:

1. Should she book it soon? Will LAX-NRT-HKG awards ever be released? Last time she called WP and Cantonese, they could not see any seats at any class or tier at all!

2. She can safely dump the final LAX-SAN or LAX-SBA segment, right? Just walk out of LAX customs with her bags and go home, right?

3. If she takes the evening outbound itin--fly SAN-LAX, go home, return the next day for LAX-NRT-HKG, can she check no bags with AA and then two bags with NW the next day?

4. If she must check the same number of bags, I assume AA will/can only tag them to LAX, right? (Who'd want bags to be left overnight at LAX behind security with those shady employees?)