Yes, these codeshares are tricky. Fly e.g to PEK with CA ticket on AY metal and you get 0.0 point/miles in any programme.

But for a 2k saving I'd be happy to give up a few hundred points or so (I'm not sure about KIX-ICN, but ICN-NRT on JL earned a princely 855 points in "M" and HND-GMP an even more fantastic 367 points in "Q" class. The good thing of course that at ICN I got gate upgraded ^

Yes I guess to give up those few points is no problem but I thought that as soon as there is a JAL Flight number then of course I would be getting points, no matter what plane they put me on :( Sadly JAL has no own service form KIX and CX does not offer the route as perhaps flying 4 hours to HKG and then fly 2 hours back to ICN is unreasonable ;)

According to my quick search, difference is generally not that high. I see 3 options:
1. KIX - Europe - KIX €2800
2. ICN - Europe - ICN €1800
3. ICN - Europe (or Europe1 / Europe2) - KIX €2000

Option 3 gives you a great opportunity to route to ARN, then buy a nice and very cheap ticket to various European destinations (PRG is generally the cheapest for a quick 1-day visit) starting at ARN and routing back to HEL, from where you could continue to KIX and save yourself some time needed for getting home from ICN.

When i check prices it is usually (unless there is a campaign) 520000 yen for KIX to HAM nd retrnoin business. From ICN its around 270000 yen which is a differnce of 250000 yen which is about 2000 $. Those seem to be regular prices. Sometimes AY runs campaigns and sells the business seat ex Japan for the same as ex ICN but cause of the JV prices are high here.

I don't think that is the whole story. My good friends in Japan are die-hard ANA fans. Their prices are sky high as well for flights to Europe at least. Again, from Europe to Japan prices are much lower. Captive market? Despite all three alliances in the market, not enough competition?

Well i was only talking akout AY actually. I personally go to HAM always but if FRA is ok to you as well and you do not care the Airline then they are cheap tickets ex Japan of course.

That's interesting, because my search on AY's website shows campaign prices at 380000 yen, and besides that there is a wide availability of non-campaign tickets for 460000 yen ex KIX. I'm wondering if searching through a European VPN could help you get better price.

Thats interesting. Never thought VPN could help here. Going to try it tomorrow. The latest campaign ends October 5 and is 290000 to HAM ex KIX in business.

I'd think that prices are based on the origin airport, not the origin purchasing IP address. Especially AY is notorious for forcing even the currency to origin airport's.

Yes. No need of VPN hocus pocus with AY. Price is based on city of departure.

I remember SAS had in early 2000's different prices based on their website's country selected.

Also the CC charges and service fees are based on the origin of the ticket. No €5 + 1% fees ex-Sweden, for example.

DY still does this. Bought ARN-HEL for about €5 cheaper when using the Swedish site.

(And AB sells their tickets a little cheaper if you go to their page via Kayak etc.)

Well, if you like to spend money on Amadeus booking codes...

Which sadly works in reverse for the 2 million swedes in southern catchment area, since they are referred to purchase their Finnair tickets from Denmark with hefty fees and currency mark-ups.

Well, I just booked my very first true same-plane turnaround MR. ARN-HEL-DEL-HEL-ARN with overnight transit at HEL both ways and same-plane-urnaround at DEL. I'll let you know in January how it went. Value ticket €518. ^

Value of Platinum?
 

Hey I m just not sure how much to spend for staying Platinum, with upcoming flights I m Gold for sure, but I could finalize Platinum by end of August if I book One World flights to the US - but the tickets are an extra 1000€ compared to *A - so I m not sure if it is worth it, since I m not flying too much anymore. How do you calculate this?