OK my turn to ask a daft question! (And thanks in advance for the forebearance of the denziens of the board if my search missed a revious match)!

I'm considering a CRTWSTAR2/3 with a CAI starting point.

I'm intending to use our bulging collection of ukstatus vouchers to upgrade any candidate segments to First class.

I'm aware from other threads that use of these vouchers is a bit of a crapshoot, dependent on load factors (and attitude factors) on the day, and am aware of the power of a fully flexible ticket in negotiating upgrades ("Nothing on the morning flight? Gee thats a shame, well, I guess we'll just change to the <insert competing *A carrier> flight, though we'd really rather fly with you, of course..." etc).

So:

For the purposes of the *A rules, which continent is CAI in? Does the standard "All flights up to the first International flight" rule apply, or the more restrictive "All flights up to the first Intercontinental flight" Europe-specific rule?

My candidate routing (i.e. the one I will later optimise with side trips etc.) is:

CAI-FRA-BKK-SYD-AKL-SFO-ORD-MAN-FRA-CAI

And I'd REALLY like to only have to fix the date of the first flight from CAI-FRA, so I guess what I'm really asking is does this flight qualify as the first International/Intercontinental flight? And can I therefore issue everything after this as OPEN?

I'm aware that the FRA-BKK seg. might be dodgy for upgrades, so my reasoning is that with the availabilty of both LH and TG on this segment, and the number of flights per day, I should be able to score two F seats with, at worst, a 24 hour delay.

Thoughts?

Cheers, Ken.

"I am not a number! I am a free man!" - The Prisoner (Number 6).