Originally Posted by number_6
AA RTW desk has always been able to release A/D inventory on request for Emeralds, so the lack of inventory is not really a problem as long as lots of J seats (and typically there are to/from NRT). In the worst case NRT-SJC is always available these days.
Thanks, that os good to know.
Originally Posted by number_6
Presuming the mileage on the circle fare is calculated the standard way, you could go bne-hkg-phl-lax-bne which is 21981 miles (actual travel is of course hkg-jfk-rdu-phl-...-lax- ).
Mileage for all OneWorld mileage based fares (eg Circle Pacific, Global Explorer) is the sum of the distance of ticketed sectors, including any ground sectors. So unless there is a single flight number HKG-PHL, this is not going to fit as the sum of HKG-JFK-RDU-PHL is going to put me over 22,000 miles.
Originally Posted by number_6
You could even route via MIA, e.g. hkg-jfk-mia-phl-mia-jfk-lax (jfk-mia is 60 SCs). Even better, so is phl-mia (but bwi-mia is only 30 SC). So you can get an extra 240 SCs for jfk-mia-phl-mia-jfk (all this presumes that circle fare counts mileage between stopovers and not including transits).
But again, unless its a single flight number HKG-PHL, its not going to fit in the mileage allowance. Getting a DCIR22 to the USA East Coast is always tight. Forget doing it from SYD or MEL, BNE is generally the only optoin which is helpful for me at least.