It seems like that this is the case then....what a PITA.
Honestly, the value of xONEx keeps diminishing in light of the price hikes over the last couple of years, along with the reduction of sectors from 20 to 16 and now we can't even have identical city pairs!!

I now have to begrudgingly route to KIX instead...it's not a big deal but this should at the very least be updated and made clear in the fare rules on OW's website. It's not rocket science...
It's a long shot but now that they take city pairs into account, I wonder if they will allow us to book open segments with city pairs (i.e. LON/NYC/TYO) instead of specifying an specific airport...
-chilledflyer-