I have flown on OW award tickets (20K, 25K & 35K miles flown) during the past 7-8 years and until now the procedure was (a) open jaw mileages were never counted and (b) the actual flown miles of a city pair were the same whether you were purchasing a RTW ticket (e.g. DONE4) or getting an award ticket.

Yet, yesterday, when I needed to get a OW Award ticketed urgently, I was told by two separate agents at AA's Exec Platinum desk that open-jaw mileage is being counted (for example 39 miles between HND and NRT for connecting flights AND 14 miles between JFK & LGW) - which sounded absolutely incredible to me.

They also claimed that the mileage between city pairs used to calculate revenue fares is different from the mileage used in calculating OW awards! This too seemed incredible.

Could someone verify whether these interpretations are correct? If so, have the rules changed recently?

PS. I debated whether to post this in the AA forum or the OW forum - but since the agents insisted that these were OW rules, I thought it best to post here.

What the agents told you is absolutely correct. Land or open jaw segments count in the mileage. The rules have not changed recently in this area.

I bet that's not what you wanted to hear...

This is the thread that discusses the AA oneworld awards:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...er-awards.html

There were some changes to the rules in 2008 regarding calculation of mileage.

These are AA rules for an "AA oneworld Award" and so are probably better discussed in the above-referenced thread. Good luck with the trip.