BTW, this is my planned itinerary. I'll be departing MEL late November, and shall be back in Sydney by mid-Jan. I'll then do the Australian leg of my trip prob in Feb. For the start of the trip, since I'm Sydney-based, I'll just take a flight down to MEL, and it's easy to transfer in MEL since it's just one terminal, basically.

MEL-HKG
HKG-SIN
SIN-HEL
HEL-LHR
ORY-MAD
MAD-BCN
BCN-ORY
LHR-SFO
SFO-JFK
JFK-TPA
TPA-ORD
ORD-BOS
BOS-DCA
DCA-LGA
JFK-HKG
HKG-SYD
SYD-DRW
DRW-ADL
ADL-PER
PER-SYD

I also plan on doing the Platinum Challenge with AA - the JFK-HKG leg will be the one that'll take me over the 10,000 point mark, and it'll give me 100% bonus on the points for that leg too!