[simongr]

Hi all
I have an upcoming DONE4 planned with visits to SAT, NYC and AKL. I currently have teh following booked:

12 SEP 08:20-20:15 JFK-LHR BA172
12 SEP 22:15-17:10+1 LHR-HKG BA27
13 SEP 21:05-11:55+1 HKG-AKL CX 107

A bit of a monster I know but basically I needed to get from JFK-AKL and that seemed like the best option.

I now have two complications to add.

Complication 1

I am currently trying to manage my FFPs to maintain QF SG (Sep anniversary - currently 440 SCs) and AA EXP (currently on 74K qpoints).

I have two short flights in this itinerary that would get me easily to QF SG, and would only need to change my FF number twice on the itin (once on arrival in SFO and once before leaving SAT) which should simplify things.

However as a AA EXP I don't earn any points JFK-LHR and no status bonus LHR-HKG. I could put these both to QF but then I would dump a heap of points in QF that I don't want to have there (I am trying to save points to get to the UK again next Sep/Oct)

My alternative to this would be:

JFK-LHR 11 Sep AA116 23:30- 11:25+1 (using eVIP to F as currently A6/D7)
LHR-HKG 12 Sep CX250 18:20-13:10+1
HKG-AKL 13 Sep CX107 21:05-11:55+1

Or some other variant where I could even maybe get into London to get to the Selfridges Christmas store to get some nice decorations.

The advantages to this are:

More points earned, saves a night's accommodation in NY

The disadvantages:

Changes of terminals, lots of time on the ground at LHR and missing out on the T5 lounges (which admittedly aren't that great) and starting a very long haul trip with a short overnight flight.

So any thoughts on this?

I could forsake the status bonus on BA flying LHR-HKG if that meant 6 hours in T5 rather than 6 hours in T3.

Complication 2

I might be cancelling the AKL visit and the associated flights so I am interested in a couple of options:

a more exciting/interesting/earning route back to OZ from JFK
a more direct flight to get me to PER for at least one full weekend day on the way back to SYD - which I assume would mean flying xxx-MEL-ADL-PER-SYD to get a decent hard product in J (sorry BNE).

Any thoughts/helpful suggestions are as ever greatly appreciated.

Cheers

S

[Leumas]

I don't have an expert knowledge of DONEs, but I'm confused with your post. I'm not clear on what your exact question is.

Do you have something ticketed already? If so, the route is basically firm, and you're just asking what's the best flight to take. This is the impression I'm getting.

From the routing you posted, I'm assuming you've to fly east. The only suggestion I can make is after AA116, catch the BA25 (I think there're 2 BA LHR-HKG flights each day). BA25 leaves at around the same time as CX250, so you get to experience T5 as well as popping into London. (Something you've touched on already.)

If your route isn't firm, from JFK, you can consider flying to HEL or Amman on your way to HKG. You can of course connect to other places if you don't mind having more flights - HKG being the most direct way to get to AKL.

I think there're flights from HKG to PER as well, but I suspect you don't want to touch those...

If you can fly west, then you can fly JFK-HKG-AKL (or ADL) all on CX. I think some of the JFK-HKG flights are also code-shared with AA as well...?

[simongr]

Thanks for the reply. I have a ticketed DONE4 but essentially only have to get from NYC to AKL flying east.

I think I will actually do the overnight to the UK then about 8 hours in the lounge unless I decide to make the route more interesting.

[Dave Noble]

If you take AA to connect to CX , then you do not have to change terminals in LHR

AA and CX both operate out of Terminal 3

Timewise, AA also operates a daytime service from JFK-LHR which would allow you to connect to an evening CX service out of LHR

Another option would be to take a slightly earlier JFK-LHR flight and connect to the lunchtime CX flight to Hong Kong

These would both avoid 6 hour waits at LHR.

if you did end up with a long wait at LHR during the afternoon, the CX lounge is quite pleasant for waiting in since it tends to be deserted from when the lunchtime departure boards until passenger arrive for the CX250

Looking at availability, it would seem that the CX flights on the 12th Sep are on D0 which might cause an issue. In the hunt for qpoints, how about switching the transatlantic flight from the BA morning service to AA142 for now ( assuming that 1hr 45 is a valid mct ) since that is a nice 5178 qpoints and evippable

Dave