Originally Posted by sporadic

"How does one get MEL-SIN-MEL for 30k miles?" you may ask. US Airways has an extremely unique award chart, which lumps MEL and Micronesian destinations such as GUM and SPN within the same amorphous region known as the "South Pacific". So while MEL-SIN-MEL does technically cost 90k US Airways miles for a J ticket, MEL-SIN-Whatever-GUM-Whatever-MEL does cost only 30k miles in J. This is a tactic that I have suggested previously, saying it does only cost 80k miles in J to go from mainland USA to Australia, because it takes 50k miles in J on a roundtrip from the US to GUM using Avianca LifeMiles, and then 30k US Airways miles in J from GUM to Australia roundtrip. Even better, the US Airways agent that handles the booking can incorrectly add in a stopover (some guy did PM me and mention that he wrangled in an 8 day stopover in NGO on this type of award ticket, but YMMV nonetheless, because it is US Airways that you are dealing with).