My read was that the "family member" wants to fly from China to MNL on a ticket that would be very expensive in terms of cash, but possibly a good value using miles... and, PR is the only carrier that flies this particular route nonstop.

An interesting thing about FT, is that in spite of all of the action in the major forums (i.e. SWUs last on CC for ~3 days), we also see threads like:

"what can I possibly do with 20,000 PR miles?"
and
"where can I find 20,000 PR miles?"

about 3 times per year, each. Yet, they almost never cross paths.