Quick update on this one.

Spoke to the friendly operator at AA Australia (India) and she said she would put down QF108 jfk-lax but AA may reject it for ticketing. I said it was on QF metal and not an AA codeshare so should not be a probelm and my following sector a week later is QF12 lax-syd. She also believed as none of the long haul sectors (pacific or atlantic) were on AA they would not be interested in even ticketing it.

From other threads I've read AA were happy to ticket these if you dealt with them directly rather than via a TA. Was asked to call them back in 24 hours for pricing and the 'determination' from AA.