First, isn't your math off? LAX-JFK in Asia Miles is 30k in biz class, not 25k, right?
Asia Miles Award Chart
1.) Regardless of above, this logic is indeed "too good to be true". CX prices award routes based on the actual routing taken (although they don't take the same view when
paying MPC members Club Miles and Asia Miles...we earn miles on the straight route...
). In an extreme example, say you flew LAX-HKG-LHR-JFK....that's not 30k miles in the MPC. Same logic will hold for LAX-YVR-HKG. And I'm not even sure if you can go via YVR, as the fellow above says. But even if you can, they'll charge you the distance of all the sectors combined. I *think* this will end up being 45k miles, in award zone C.
Where CX doesn't help things is their website is stupid, so you actually have to click through. An associate of mine needed to buy YVR-JFK, and the plane was nearly sold out except F. Wasn't keen to pay cash for his F ticket. Lo and behold, award availability popped up. Showed the typical 130k Asia Miles cost for one-way F. Horray! But then upon clicking, we realized it was YVR-JFK-HKG. Okay, not the end of the world. Oh.....but then you click through and realize the price jumps to 170k miles, because it prices by sector.
Anyway, point is you gotta click through to find the actual price even if you find availability. And they price on all the sectors you fly, not point to point...they only use the latter when they're AWARDING us with miles. ......they're not too stupid, after all. can't say that's a great look IMO but whatever.