As a Far East-based leisure traveler, this isn't fantastic news, but I'm happy to see that flying to Hawaii/Oceania is now cheaper than Europe/Africa for us; previously it made little sense that a trip to Perth, just 8 hours south of me, would cost the same as a trip to Portugal or South Africa or Senegal, all of which are twice the distance or more. I'd been holding off on Oceania for a while and now it's reasonable to do a one-stop via Auckland somewhere on Air New Zealand, or to try the new ANA A380s to Honolulu.

The countries seem to have shifted slightly as well on the list of which ones are in which redemption regions. Not too many changes but a few small loopholes closed...

- There's no longer a 'Russia-Siberia' in the Central Asia category, which was a cheaper redemption than European Russia for those of us in East Asia (though other than ANA's yet-to-launch Tokyo-Vladivostok route, do any Far East Star Alliance carriers serve any Siberian cities?)

- Denmark now excludes Greenland; Greenland moves to North America.

- San Marino has been deleted from the Europe list but Andorra, Monaco, Liechtenstein and the Vatican are still in.