As much as I hate travel during busy times, I think I'll have to bite the bullet on this one. For this much flying I would like to get a three week trip in. By using the holiday break, I can get up to a 23 day vacation by only burning nine vacation days spread across two years. To do that mid year would burn most if not all of my three weeks paid vacation.

Alaska does seem to be the best bet for me at only 55K points and $40-$50 in taxes one way for business. Since they fly DTW-SEA, I can build the routing all the way from/to home. From SEA it is another connection to SFO, LAX or YVR to pick up QANTAS to SYD, MEL or BNE. There are several outbound options bookable for December, nothing for January return though.