Originally Posted by
lewende
Thanks and apologies for the confusion. My intention is not flying for free but getting the miles of the remaining unflown portion redeposited. The reason why I am asking this is: right now HKG-HND on my intended travel data has no award availability, and if I ask AS to only cancel the long haul flight, by changing a 65K stopover itinerary into a 25K intra-asia OW flight, my concern is a possibility of losing my HKG-HND segment (please chime in if you think this is not an issue). So it would be safer to just fly the first segment and then cancel the rest to get 40K miles back. Hope this makes sense now.
Unfortunately, that is not how it works. HKG-HND-ORD is a 65K award, with or without the stopover in HND. HND-ORD is a 65K award with or without a stopover in ORD. If you commence the HKG-HND segment, their is no longer any value to refund if you don't use the HND-ORD segment. There is nothing to refund.
You can't change the Asia-US redemption to an intra-Asia redemption after you have commenced the trip.
If you know you won't be flying the HND-ORD segment and you don't change your redemption to intra-Asia before flying, your intra-Asia flight will effectively cost you 65K.
Have you tried changing the itinerary online? You can check your option before commiting to anything.
Click on change above your itinerary in Trips, select "Change this trip" it should be selected by default. On the HND-ORD segment select "change" and then in the flight details select "cancel" and then continue. Don't worry, nothing is confirmed at this step.
Look at your options. If you see HKG-HND in J and -40K you are free to select that and continue to purchase. There also may be a change in taxes & fees, either owing or a credit. Once you purchase, the change will take effect. The miles will be redeposited. In you activity, the original 65K redemption will be reversed and a new intea-Asia redemption of 25K will show; the 45K difference will be reflected in your balance. Any fees & taxes owed will be collected during purchase, any fees & taxes overpaid will be refunded to the original form of payment in 7-10 business days but usually much sooner.
If you are not seeing any HKG-HND J flights, you will need to call AS for options and assistance.
From recent experience when canceling a JL J award the flight immediately went back into inventory. That is always risky but as a last resort it may work if you are faced with flying Y anyway or burning 65K for your already confirmed J.
James