Originally Posted by
GetAA81Back2ARN
Was by any chance one of them coded as SK (1505) and the other one as LH (1500) on the original tickets?
Yes!

You are correct.
So the mathematician then assumes that in SK system multiplication is not properly associative.

That is that (a * b) * c is not a * (b * c). Essentially it may be that they multiply together your bonus before they multiply it with the basic point value for the segment.
Now; for LH it might simply be that it is a different piece of code that calculates points from SK vs. points from partners.