Stand corrected, all those funky canadian abbreviations get me sometimes!

And yeah, IIRC ANC service starts in like May so you should be all set.

HNL is actually one of the weirdest OWE rules - the actual wording is that you can go or come there from the US a grand total of once, so the clear intention is that you on visit it coming or going to Australia or some random place in the south pacific (don't think Air Tahiti qualifies, but CX might have something going into HNL.) You might be able to get away with your original route if you claim you're sailing to San Francisco, but I suspect you're much better off just doing a non-controversial routing on the way from down under, finding something that will get you close to the miles without the hassle of wondering if someone is going to try to cancel your ticket, especially since you're likely to think about using miles to visit one of the neighbor islands let alone an award ticket back to the mainland.

Besides, HNL-ORD or DFW is one where you know AA can't downgrade from a 767!