Hi everyone,

The wife and I have to be in SYD at the end of September for a few days and were thinking of taking the long way home (LAX) by doing an AONE4.

We will be seperating the trip into two parts. The first part is our trip to Australia and back and is pretty set in terms of destinations (due to time constraints), the second just using the 6 North American segments add some miles to my account.

Just wanted to see what the pros thought of my routing.

Part 1) LAX-SYD-JNB-CPT-LHR-SFO (and return to LAX via cheap tix on VX, AS, AA, etc.)
Part 2) SFo-DFW-SAN-ORD-MIA-JFK-LAX... adding 9100 miles.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks!

You don't say where you live, but presumably it is LAX (perhaps time to update your profile if you are going to be asking questions like this). If all your NA flights are just for MR and you don't care where you go, then you are wasting about 50% of the possible mileage. Lots of past discussion of the high-mileage routes available (ironically many of them are through LAX). Also you can open-jaw, so you don't have to continue from SFO. You could fly sfo/lax-jfk-sju-lax-dfw-anc-lax for 15K miles, for example. Lots of other alternatives, depending on taste and season (e.g. SJO, AUA, SXM) which would yield 15K mile range.

If you start in LAX & have a "stopover" in SFO at the end of part 1, you'll only be able to do one stopover (break > 24 hours) in the 6 segments in part 2. This is 'coz the rules say no more than 2 stopovers in the originating continent.

No big deal if it's purely a mileage run, but you might be pretty fed up with aircraft and airports by the end of Part 2!

Further thoughts: Assuming you're in AA, why not start in SFO? There's a QF codeshare to SYD & then you can pass through LAX as much as you like, finishing in LAX if you wish. That way you can fly AA from LHR to LAX, which earns AA miles. BA from LHR to SFO earns no miles for AA members, IIRC.

As has been pointed out you would only have two stopovers in NA which would seriously limit the utility of the NA segments for other than mileage running. Based upon your current itinerary you could also consider a circle pacific since the Africa and EUR segments don't seem to be a major consideration.

Travel may not be via the point of origin.

Excellent point (one reason that I begin all my OWEs elsewhere). For the OP a simple change of starting SFO-SYD instead of LAX-SYD would be the best solution, and then hub the NA flights at LAX. As for earning miles on BA TATL, that is what QFF is for.

Wow... great help already.

Didn't think to start from SFO, leaving LAX as transit point for part 2 of the trip. For some reason I didn't think QF74 (SFO-SYD) had an F cabin , but nevertheless, it sure does.

number_6, could you elaborate on BA trans-Atlantic flights earning with Qantas?

Thanks again, everyone!^

Regards,
Ryan

Also the QF crews on SFO-SYD are less tired than the LAX-SYD crews -- who have had a hard day and night of partying and shopping at LAX. So F service is markedly better out of SFO.

As for earning on BA TATL flights, these cannot be credited to AAdvantage but can be credited to BAEC or QFF. I use the QFF plan (finding it better for me than BAEC or any other OW plan). You can join QFF for free with a US address (there is/was a fee to join for Australians). The other advantage to QFF is that if you earn QF Gold (which is easy to do on an AONE4) you get free AC access for your US travel (plus free drinks at the AC). If you don't need the AA miles/status then it might be better to credit your whole trip to QFF (not generally true, as AA miles are typically worth double compared to QFF miles).

Very interesting. Most of our travel is for pleasure. Don't have status at any single carrier at this point, so maybe we'll credit everything to QF, and hope for Gold. However, I noticed on the QF website, it mentions that travelling 4 QF flights in addition to the points total is required to earn Status? I assume that this will prevent me from achieving status with them. In this case would it be better to credit to AA since the mileage run portion of the trip would probably get AA gold?

I never would have thought FF programs would be so confusing to a novice!

You definitely need 4 QF sectors to reach any status level in the QFF program. In your case you'd only have two (SFO-SYD & SYD-JNB), but you may include in your trip two short domestic services in Australia to reach the quoted 4 QF segments. Sthg like SFO-SYD-MEL (or BNE or ADL)-SYD-JNB-... may be possible and should keep your whole trip under the 16-segment limit that will be enforced from June 1 (IIRC).

Why not do a A5 and go to South America as well? SCL and EZE would be good stops.

If you decide to go for QFF elite status then note that it's easy to get your 4 segments. As posted there'd be two on the AONE4.

For those trying to get the most from the available 20(/16) segments, you can easily get another two with a separate booking ex SYD with cheap tix on QF to BNE/CBR/MEL for ~USD200pp return.

With a AONE4 you should be able to do the AA Plat Challenge by carefully selecting AA flights & AA codeshares (on QF). Earn to burn ratio is a lot better with AA. Several posts, including post 23 (also 9 and 10) in this thread, on miles needed for LAX-LHR or LAX-SYD award in Business. As you live in USA staying with AA is likley to be the better than changing to QF ffp, especially if you want upgrades on AA. Can only use AA miles to upgrade AA flights

A snip from the thread linked (and QF charge high $$ fuel surcharges on awards )

Quote:

Compare the J/F award costs of syd-lax-dfw-lax-syd
AA - 125,000 /145,000
QF - 228,000 /396,000 (note you will be in whY on the J award LAX-DFW-LAX)

One idea: Since you are not using all your 16 coupons:

You can add a LHR-Middle East-LHR (Like Dubai or Muscat - one of my favored destinations). BA has real F on these flights.

Since you are only allowed two flights to/from certain airports you could then add LHR-IST-LHR for two more european flights (but no F on these flights).