I have quite a few American Express Membership Rewards points that I can transfer to CX or SQ on 1:1 basis.

I am looking at SYD-TYO award options and at Asia Miles I saw the following:

J SYD-HKG-HND one way for 45000 points + tax. I couldn't go to the next page on website as I do not have sufficient miles available.

Reading the T&Cs for Asia Miles I noticed the following:

Award zones are based on the one-way distance between the origin airport and destination airport. If connecting sectors are involved, the sector distances should be added together to determine the total one-way distance and the applicable award zone. Unless indicated otherwise, the awards in the table apply to round-trip flights.

Now SYD-HKG-HND has distance of 6385 miles (thanks gcmap), whereas SYD-HND direct is 4837 miles. Now the 45K one-way Business award applies distance up to 5000 miles.

My only guess is that the search engine only calculates miles, based on the direct miles, for the initial search to show the possible flight options. But once you click the particular flight option, and goes to the next page, then it would show actual requirement of miles (should be 70K based on distance of 6385 miles flown). However I cannot verify this unless I have enough miles in the account, and I don't want to transfer the points to my Asia Miles account just to test this theory.

So can someone who has enough miles, can do a search and confirm my theory? Thank you.

SYD-HND direct is 4855 miles. If you are to fly direct in J, it should require 45000 miles (<5000 miles range).

SYD-HKG-HND is 4592+1803 = 6395 miles (since there are two flights not having same flight numbers even on the same day), and will require 70000 miles for J redemption.

Hi cxfan1960, I thought that is the case as well. However as mentioned in the first post, I saw the option of SYD-HKG-HND on CX J at 45K miles. But I could not go to next stage without the points.

Essentially I am trying to work out whether it is a minor glitch of the Asia Miles booking system, so that once the route is selected, the correct miles requirements (i.e. 70K miles) is shown, or it is a major glitch that lets you book weird and wonderful routings at 45K miles. I could not test this without transferring some points across to my account, so I want to see if anyone can try and prove my theory.

I have even seen HKG-DOH-SYD on QR J, marked as 45k miles in the search results. Hence I am interested.

Yes. This theory is correct.

Oh bummer. Oh well at least I know now it would cost 70K miles to HND. So I would probably fly SQ instead, if QF/JL is not available. At least SQ I can fly F and R.

Can't you take QF25?

Yes I can. However QF hardly release J seats in this route. CX and SQ is much better, especially for 4 people. Likewise for NH.

Another option is JL but I don't think they release 4 J and/or F seats either.