I am totally new to FT and this is my first time to plan a long haul itinerary. I need help. My husband and I plan to use AAdvantage award miles to travel around the world using oneworld. We would like to go from New York to: SFO, HKG, DPS, CNS, SYD, MNL, FRA, MUC, DME, LED, BCN, MAD, then back to JFK. HKG has to be the first stop; the rest of the cities can be in any orders.
We plan to use one world 3 continents for this trip using one ticket. We plan to travel to Asia and South West Pacific during Oct/Nov 2013. We would pay our own ways back to JFK from FRA in Dec. And pay our own ways back to MUC in May 2014 for the second part of the trip to see the white night at St. Petersburg.
1) Please help me with the routing with less distance traveled to save our AA award miles.
2) I am not allow to book the ticket beyond 365 days (the end of the whole trip should end in July 2014), should I wait until August to book one ticket or I should book two separate tickets? I need to book early and be flexible with the dates. Book for Oct now and then book another one for May 2014 later on. Since we are going to pay round trip inbound and outbound from Germany. One ticket or two tickets; which method uses fewer miles?
3) Or should I use global explorer instead of oneworld? Thanks