Originally Posted by
sapguy
I am based out of both PHL and LAX so can start my trip to Tokyo from either cities.
Thank you for your very useful tip of using the link to the right of the day(s) where I can view a month at a time! I can now see Business/First award for 60K one-way LAX-HND in Biz Class, although many are 1-stop to ORD as the non-stop LAX-HND is priced at ridiculous amount of points!
I've been seeing results like this too (i.e. AA metal offered and/or connections via ORD/DFW to places like SFO and LAX that have nonstop flights of their own). There seems to be a bit of married segment logic going on here. Still, I prefer to keep my initial searches as simple as possible (e.g. JL gateway airports only); if they want to show me connecting itineraries, that's fine but I'm doing my part to limit the number of variables I introduce into the equation.
ETA: On your way back to the US, the married segment thing can work out in your favor (e.g. you might see the TYO-LAX-DFW for 60k when searching for TYO-DFW, even when TYO-LAX is priced sky high standalone). Also, I use TYO for Tokyo because it covers both HND and NRT (e.g. you probably won't see NRT-BOS in any results if you use HND as your origin).