Thanks for the suggestions guys. As it turns out the only route I could get myself upgraded on includes the overnight in Bombay. I have indeed experienced road traffic there and am not looking forward to repeating it, but I'd rather do that than fly economy from New York.
AA told me they couldn't upgrade me with miles on a BA flight. Was that 60k for the upgrade? If so how do you pull that off?
FYI what I probably would have done if money were no object would be to do the layover in Dubai and fly Emirates. That looked like a comfortable trip...
Thanks again,
Truly