I have resumed starting to plan for a trip to Australia (AUS) during July/Aug of 2020. Right now, the plan (hope?) is for three seats in J (my wife, our daughter, and me). General routing is:
Step 1 - Any US city to HKG (stopover) and on to to AUS. (Hopefully both legs are on Cathay Pacific)
Step 2 - Stopovers in no particular order in MEL, AYQ, BNE & SYD. (All domestic AUS flights are to be on Qantas)
Step 3 - Finish with flights from either BNE or SYD back to any city in US via LAX/DFW/SFO on Qantas (preferred) or AA (if necessary).
Step 4 - If needed, an onward flight to any US city from DFW or LAX or SFO on AA to satisfy second carrier in addition to CX rule.
I am indifferent as to direction. We could go USA-HKG-AUS-USA, or we could go USA-AUS-HKG-USA.
One possible route is:
SEA-HKG(o)-MEL(o)-AYQ(o)-BNE(o)-SYD(o)-DFW(X)-LAX
Another possible route is
SEA-HKG(o)-MEL(o)-AYQ(o)-SYD(o)-BNE(o)-LAX(X)-DFW
My questions are as follows:
1 - How difficult will it be to get three J seats on one CX flight to HKG from any of SEA/LAX/SFO?
2 - How difficult will it be to get three J seats on one CX or QF flight Ex HKG into Australia? Would it be easier to get three seats on a QF flight?
3 - How difficult will it be to get three J seats on one QF flight ex-BNE or ex-SYD to LAX/SFO/DFW? Is this pie in the sky dreaming or is it likely?
Practically speaking, do I need to call the Asia Miles line 330 days out from the last flight? In a perfect world, our trip would be 28-30 days, so then I am calling about 300 days out from my first flight.
Final side question....would it be significantly easier to do this ex-Japan instead of ex-USA? ie. NRT-HKG-AUS-NRT
Thanks in advance to those who read my post and to those who reply.
BdaDiver