There isn't a "far ahead" date for booking the (few) routes and dates that are zeroed out -- there are no seats to book, ever, so it isn't competition with other people booking the seats before you, but rather the airline making none available. This is due to the high demand for more expensive tickets during the current airline boom. It will end, as booms always do, probably with a big bust, but probably not in 2007. Hard to say how the year will go, but probably with worse supply as the year goes on, so book what you can.

The exact formula for OWE fare allocation is a trade secret, but the "over ocean" routes get the lion's share of the fare. So 3 sectors out of the 20 get more than half of the ticket revenue (or 5x the revenue of the other sectors). Thus the airlines all want to fly trans-Atlantic, trans-Pacific and Europe-Asia/Australia on these tickets. Some similar length/service flights, such as LHR-JNB or JFK-EZE get far less, so it isn't a fair division, but the airlines made up these rules. Again not enough of these tickets to really matter, so the airlines leave the system as it is.

In August 2005 I wanted the non stop JFK-HGK in June 2006 for a DONE4. No dice at the time so I booked via YVR. On an almost daily basis I kept a lookout for D availability on the non stop but it never eventuated. About a month out I gave up and changed to the AA codeshare on the onestop (to get double QFF miles for the segment).

FWIW, the one stop service was fine, with a 'dinner' flight and a 'sleep' flight.

Question - is JFK-YVR on CX a transcon for the purpose of the 'only 1 transcon' rule?

I was thinking that if I can't get the CX nonstop, I might as well stopover in YVR for a few days.

Yes.

Cheers. AA via DFW it is.

Maybe I'm missing something, but wouldn't the revised itinerary be a good candidate for Global Explorer instead of DONE3?

Could easily fit under the maximum mileage of DGLOBxx, which opens up having more segments in europe, non-oneworld airlines, etc.

Cheers- will check that out. Hope it's not too much more expensive on the DGLOBxx. The NRT sectors are contingent on JL joining oneworld though, whether DONEx or DGLOBxx. Have to maximise the QF SCs. :p

edited to add - Just checked it out. It's distance-based (up to 34 000 miles for D and much more expensive :S), so that wouldn;t work for my itinerary as it involves lots of backtracking. Also, it doesn't include Alaskan airlines which is what I need to get to/from SEA. Getting 2 extra sectors in Europe doesn't seem too bad if I buy them in economy.

Global Explorer allows the use of JL.

I realised that. But I need JL in oneworld to earn Status Credits on QF FF. Sorry for not being clear.

The Global Explorer would give you the option of booking earlier. May be useful if you want to include some high demand flights.

Er, well all you need is an airline rep or TA who can hold reservations for you. You could make a reservation on a JL D class flight as part of an itinerary right now - it's only ticketing it as a OWE that you couldn't do. It is a fundamental point that people seem to fail to get that reservations and ticketing are seperate things. The only problem you have to manage is the ability to hold reservations without a ticket number applied to them.