ALA is in North Asia in US's award chart... like, say, HKG. Thus HKG-ZRH-FRA-ALA would be 40K US miles in F.
LH executives are on record (one of the *A MegaDos) as regarding US redemptions with a lot of contempt, and they aren't stupid. "Oh, look, a bunch of award tickets on 037 stock from Asia, connecting through FRA, going to ALA, same day turn in ALA, some of them with a stopover in Europe. I wonder what that could be.
Well, we will fix THAT one."
Tricks like that have been widely discussed in this thread (and shut down once it gets hammered by eager FTers, just like mistake fares).
Originally Posted by
Air Rarotonga
That won't work! Too big backtracking! You can use OZ to TSE without backtracking!
You mean like how Russia was in North Asia for a while? There are posts in here talking about connecting through FRA on a N Asia award on that, too. US has not really enforced MPM in the past. My guess is their award booking IT is based off of stone knives and bearskins (aka Shares, go ask people in the UA forum how they like it).