Morning morning,

Hope you are having a wonderful start of the week.

I am hoping to have the chance to head east—Japan, Hong Kong, perhaps the Middle East—and experience what is on offer beyond British Airways. I am completely clueless, as my routes have anyways been serviced by BA so far, but I understand Japan Airlines, Cathay and Qatar offer far superior products than British Airways, and I would love to maximise the value of the experience. Since I am flexible on dates and I am looking well ahead—basically booking as seats become available for next year travel—with a pinch of luck, availability should hopefully not be a problem, although I suppose the front cabins on these airlines and routes are fiercely contested.

What I am trying to prioritise:
-One or possibly two trips, departing from LHR and flying to Tokyo and Hong Kong, respectively, possibly hopping to Bangkok from Hong Kong for a couple of days. I could stitch them together into one trip if multi-city offers value.
- Get a taste of JAL, CX and QR front cabins, unless any of them is not worth compared to the others.
-Experience their top lounges— Long, timely stopovers are v welcomed.
-Since I would be booking well in advance and life happens, same-or-similar cancellation policy as British Airways on reward flights—full avios refund and £35 fee up to 24hours before flying—which I always thought was too generous, but has proved fantastically useful in the past.
-Enjoy the ride. Maximise the value of the experience, as these will be purely booked for that reason.

What I plan to use:
- British Airways Gold
- About 400,000-500,000 avios
- A positive mindset

For reference, a v quick and random search using the Reward flight search tool offered LHR-East using BA+CX in Club, returning Qatar First with a stopover for some 200,000. Would this be just about the best value I can get for my points?

I have tried to find some guidance on this, but failed to find so. Any help or pointers are greatly appreciated, from which airline and cabins to look for to where to book—using BA online tool, BA phone booking, or a partner’s website—to which silly mistakes to avoid since I am so hideously ignorant about it all.

Many, many thanks in advance and, once again, apologies if this topic has been asked dozens of times, as I rather assume it must have.

PS. On afterthought, some points are being held on American Express, so a non-oneworld airline could be an option if much better option, although I understand this is a oneworld forum and I hold no status with any other group.