OneWorld or CX award?
 

I'd like to travel to Australia around Thanksgiving this year and booked JFK-HKG-SYD outbound, CNS-HKG-JFK return with CX 100K award. I plan to purchase one way QF ticket from SYD-CNS.

However, a friend of mine mentioned that there's an "OneWorld Gateway" award that would enable me to do JFK-HKG-SYD on CX and SYD-CNS-LAX-JFK on QF, for about the same mileage. I tried to find it on the AA site but the only thing I could find is the Multi-carrier award. Calculating total trip miles it would be around 20000 so at least 130K in business class.

Is there a OneWorld award that would be better than the CX one? Also, if I buy the one-way SYD-CNS from QF, am I qualify for the Australia pass?

Thanks much,

Just a thought... many of the Cairns flights also go on to Brisbane, which is going to be a much cheaper flight from Sydney I guess. Could you include the BNE-CNS leg in your 100K booking and then just buy a SYD-BNE (either on QF or on Virgin Blue)?