Originally Posted by
Wozza2404
Interestingly even with starting in Cairo, it's cheaper for me to do an ex-EU to SYD, breaking in Asia on the outbound and in the GCC on the inbound, and then an ex-DUB to the USA, than it is to book a DONE4.
This is all due to the current sale fares, obviously. I'm sure that won't always be the case.
Although there is a substantial difference in the miles earned due to the air bonus miles for 2015 elite travel on D class fares as per
http://www.aa.com/i18n/urls/aadvantage-currency.jsp - the sales are I fares when on AA/US which get about 1/4 of the miles.
The difference can be significant. I'm on a DONE4 from JNB and should get over 100k in extra bonus miles.