Originally Posted by
Yunnnn
With the recent devaluation, tickets are charged by segment; you wouldn't be able to get the price that you used to be getting for SGN -> IST -> NRT.
They had fixed the Asia-IST-Asia business class 30.000 miles loophole even before the devaluation. Only destinations in mainland China were possible which was kind of a no-go because of the visa issues with China. Many used that loophole to get cheap 30.000 miles oneway business class award tickets to Istanbul by throwing away the second segment. But once they only accepted China you faced a visa issue. Nobody would be accepted for boarding for the flight if no China visa was shown. The intention to travel only to IST didn't count.