my partner has 25k US miles accrued over a couple of years of dabbling in transcons and i am preparing to switch her over to United. i want to get the most out of her miles and i am willing to do the double RDM promotion to buy up to a biz award *A, in order to save some of my UA miles.

we want to travel to DUB next fall. the specific itinerary i want to book is:

SMF-ORD/IAD-BTV (UA)
stop
BTV-EWR/IAD-DUB (UA)
destination
DUB-IAD-SMF (UA)

my understanding is that this award is not possible on US because the stopover isnt in a hub city. is that correct?

if so, would SMF-ORD-EWR (stop/OJ) BTV-EWR/IAD-DUB-IAD-SMF be legal?

i wont be able to book this until early October. am I still going to be able to book a *A award at that point, given US pending departure from *A?