Originally Posted by spotwelder

Australia
You have the four sectors here. The only rules about Perth are that you cannot do the Sydney/Darwin/Cairns more than once. The Tokyo flight is longest from MEL, hitting the magic 5000 so go for it. Buy your ticket starting from somewhere else to end up in MEL. Can you get a CBR cheaply?

There are no restrictions on Trans-tasman in the LONE rules. The best mileage is with the Perth thrown in on domestic so you want to come in and out of Perth at least once. That is going to force you down the PER to CANBERRA flight (the capital...) or MEL route. Punch out of CBR to the PER then PER to BNE to CHC to MEL. At this point, go home, do your washing and start again. Not sure that I have optimised this bit but it is close. I will play more over time. [See the PPT comment about add on price and then if you want that, swap CHC for AKL as one option]

You have used 5 sectors (4 internal and one trans-conti)
CBR-PER ? (QF site down)
PER-BNE 2243
BNE-CHC 1551
CHC-MEL 1491
MEL-NRT 5059

Asia
You are trapped into the first sector being HKG so we have to accept that. There is only the TPE once a day. I do not think that you get the extra miles for this flight number so forget it. There is nothing from TPE to take advantage of anyway, except NRT, the delightful FUK, NGO, OSA, and SEL. These are all at around 1000 miles so don't bother. Straight to HKG You have a maximum of four sectors in Asia. One has been blown on the HKG so that leaves maximum 3 before trans-continental time again.

For mileage within this continent there is only one option, and if you status points on QF, the bad news is it is KHI. Having done the pointless(?!) run, you now need the single sector that will get you out with maximum mileage to Europe. SIN is about 500 more than BKK and longer to LHR. Now the strategies change depending upon which scheme you join. Your options are with CX,AY and BA at this point. That would drop you into HEL or LHR as the places you can get out of again on a long distance adventure. You will have other hubs to leave from as well with IB and EI joining the exit party.

For HEL, you have direct HKG at 4859, BKK at 4927, Osaka (I get my KIX on route 66) at 4816, your inbound NRT at 4876, PEK at 3929, SIN at 5761 (which goes via BKK anyway).

HKG direct 4859
HKG-BKK-HEL 5974
HKG-KIX-HEL 6344
HKG-NRT-HEL 6717
HKG-PEK-HEL 5183
HKG-SIN-HEL 7348

For the QFs out there, there is only one choice, via SIN as it contains the whoopie 5000 mile sector (must take my own medicine on that one soon).

If you want LHR then you have the change in DXB, BAH, India, Saudi, SIN, BKK, HKG direct, NRT and PEK. My feeling is here that you might want to ditch the change option and come in direct to save on the total of 20 coupons. Same with the mileage run to KHI. Just do NRT-HKG-BKK if you really want to go to BKK. Alternatively, if you are not on a mileage run, you might want to throw in HKG to DXB to LHR as a coupon saver which would allow you to stop in DXB. We will see...

NRT to HKG 1841
HKG to KHI 2956?
KHI to HKG 2956?
HKG to BKK 1047?
HKG to LHR 6004.
BKK to LHR 5940 (BA and QF options)
HKG to DXB to LHR 7267

OK, so now you are in HEL or LHR and you appear to want to do both anyway. Decide what the point of doing the return HEL to LHR is when you could split the HKG or is it worth doing the DXB split. Until you come back, I cannot recommend what to do about the coupons in Europe at this point. Remember, you can buy the additional coupons for use in a continent at AU 400 return at this point for Europe. Has to be a bargin for LHR to DXB return. If you get short of coupons in Europe, go low cost alternatives. If the worst comes to the worst, you could do Tampere to Stansted on Ryanair single to get you from HEL to LHR.

For coupons to South America from Europe you could go direct with BA, go direct with IB, go direct with LA or for mileage, route via the US without staying for 24 hours but this will cost 2 coupons. Where do you want to go and then we can help further. Is it GIG-EZE-SCL as the points of interest or were you SCL for PPT. Sorry but I think PPT is a no go area on the xONEx world map. The QF service has gone to codeshare hell. You cannot buy a SCL to PPT as an add on to this fare as it is trans-continental so sorry. Buy another ticket (from AKL if you wanted to do it by changing your CHC sector to AKL, from SYD or SCL) or consider the Global Explorer which I think will let you go that way.

OK, so now we have to haul you out of South America, from point unknown to the US and then to JFK. I am not the AA mileage run expert for the domestic US scene. My one concern is that you may be living in Oz and using coupons domestically that you could buy at some other point in your life. When will you get the chance to do Anchorage? Sorry, I do not know whether you do two round the worlds a month as I used to or if this is a once in a lifetime.

Hope that this was a planning start and we will help all we can.

Spotwelder
When the spots on the radar screen weld themselves together...