I know nothing. You guys seem to know everything. Please advise.

Here is my situation. I am in Japan now, but plan on going to Australia (any city ok) to buy a MONE4 ticket to begin July 25. I have ONLY 3 weeks to travel... and want to win the AA Platinum Challenge using ONLY Australia, then Asia, and terminating in LAX... Can I do it?

Other factors.

I will be working in Texas from August to June, leaving me with 1 last month of travel to complete my round the world ticket. At the completion of this ticket, I plan to buy another RTW ticket (but that will be a future thread).

My goals are, ranked by priority:
1. Win the Platinum upon reaching LAX
2. Be in Seoul on Aug. 1-3
3. See the coolest cities of the world (I like beaches with waves, nightlife, good looking women, and beach volleyball)

Starting from Sydney or Perth... please recommend a route for my BARBELL travel plans (1 month now, 1 month later). Thanks!

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BTW... I would have simply bought the RTW ticket here in Japan, or even Thailand... but because I want to go to Australia and then must come BACK to Korea... it would not work... I currently have two tickets that I am planning to buy to get to Australia... Fukuoka-Bangkok, then Bangkok-Sydney/Perth. Perth is only being considered for possible maximizing of miles purposes to start a RTW.

A completely off-the-top-of-my-head-probably-impossible route, but just so that you can get a feel for what i am looking for:

Perth - Sydney (stopover)
Sydney - Auckland (stopover)
Auckland - HongKong
HongKong - Seoul (stopover... yes, I know Seoul is difficult on ONEWORLD, but I dont like the other products.)
Seoul - HongKong (stopover)
Hongkong - LAX

Would something like this get me Platinum?

Then AFTER the 3 month platinum gig, I would do some hub-and-spoke stuff from Dallas... if AUSTIN is not possible... like for Christmas break...

Dallas - Bahamas
Bahamas - Dallas
***got to spend Christmas at HOME!***
Dallas - Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo - Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico - Dallas

then in June/July

Dallas - 3 or 4 cities in EUROPE
EUROPE - Sydney (via Tokyo maybe? so I get get an overnight but less than 24 hour stay?)

Thanks in advance for your help.

The concept looks fine EXCEPT for one big problem - M class fares on CX don't earn miles on AAdvantage, so HK-LAX won't count. And you only get 70% credit in M on QF.

So to get the Platinum challenge you need to use QF as much as possible, and use AA transpacific. Something like this:

NRT-SYD-AKL-SYD-HKG (on QF - earns about 8500 miles)
HKG-SEL (on CX - miles on AsiaMiles)
another ticket SEL-NRT
NRT-SJC-LAX on AA (earning 100% miles hence well-qualified for Platinum Challenge)

Remember also that since 15 April you can have a maximum of 20 flight segments on the ticket, so you might not get as many side trips in US and Europe as you were hoping.

thx christep,

but it appears your route starts in tokyo... then doubles back thru tokyo...

isnt that against the rules of ONEWORLD?

OK, how about:

syd-per-mel-hkg on qf for 8312 actual miles but only 5818 AA miles

hkg-icn on cx for AsiaMiles credit

icn-nrt separate AA JAL codeshare ticket for 782 AA miles

nrt-sjc-lax on AA for 5462 AA miles

Now you are AA Platinum.

As for the rest of the trip, something like this might work:

dfw-mia-nas-mia-sdq-sju-dfw-{europe]-lhr-nrt-syd

Problem is that with today's schedules you won't get an overnight in nrt as the syd flight leaves at 2045 but the flights from lhr arrive in the afternoon.

Sorry - yes you are right - I must stop posting when being hassled by my gf to "stop geeking".

OK, how about:
syd-per-mel-hkg on qf for 8312 actual miles but only 5818 AA miles

***Cant double back from PERTH, right?

hkg-icn on cx for AsiaMiles credit

icn-nrt separate AA JAL codeshare ticket for 782 AA miles

***does "separate" mean that I must pay more money... that this flight is outside of my RTW ticket?

nrt-sjc-lax on AA for 5462 AA miles

***Any flights that go direct to LAX from Asia on American or Cathay... so that I dont use up a segment?

You are not doubling back from PER. The SYD-PER-MEL routing is legal.

ICN-NRT is a separate purchased ticket not part of your OWE ticket.

The only alternative I can see to the NRT-SJC-LAX route is to do ICN-HKG-LAX. In that case, you must book the AA codeshare on CX out of HKG. Remember, you do not get AA mileage credit for M fares on CX coded flights so you must book the flight as the AA codeshare. Of course, this also saves buying that ICN-NRT ticket.

Is there any reason why you can't go the other way: SYD-MEL-PER-SYD ? I know you can only go one non-stop across Aus, but wouldn't this earn a lot more miles/points?

Actually, the difference between SYD-MEL-PER-SYD-HKG and SYD-PER-MEL-HKG is only 429 miles. The other thing volibolero needs to watch is the total number of segments. If he uses all four in Europe then he is at 19. Seems to me he could make better use of that last segment than 429 miles, e.g. SYD-PER-DRW-BNE-AKL-HKG (AKL-HKG on CX booked as the BA codeshare) would add an additional 4,200 miles albeit most at only at 70% AA credit due to the QF 70% multiplier.

Well, sometimes I suggest something really stupid and that's what the AKL-HKG BA codeshare is as BA only gives 25% AA mileage credit for discount fares effective 1 July.

So, how about this routing: SYD-AKL-BNE-PER-MEL-HKG. It adds 1,000 less miles than the other routing but still picks up 3,000 miles over SYD-PER-MEL-HKG. There was some chatter that you could only cross the Tasman once but I see nothing in the rules limiting that.

I have crossed Tasman twice in a recent RTW without a problem. DID SYD-AKL-SYD-AKL-HKG as part of a AOWE5.