Thanks for the responses. I was able to book it with US currency. interestingly, I could not book on their site. The trip is LAX-HKG-AKL, returning BNE-HKG-JFK-MIA. I could not book the outbound leg to LAX. Their site only allowed be to book MIA-ORD-HKG-LAX. Considering that we are leaving on Jan. 1, I had no faith connecting in ORD, followed by a 1 hour HKG connection. I'll just book a separate flight from MIA-LAX the day before (morning departure from LAX).

Their site would not allow me to complete the booking, so I had to call them. The agent thought it was because the JFK-MIA segment was an AA flight number, but then he was able to complete everything. The trip even shows up on my AA account page. Of course, I had to contact my card issuer after the first rejection - I thought it was because the amount was over $10k, but Visa kicked it back because of the merchant name. Instead of "Cathay Pacific", the merchant name was CXHKG and some numbers. Once I explained what that meant, the payment went through.