At this stage of the game because your trip is only 8 weeks away you're going to have to be creative with your options & think outside the circle. Rather than hope to get all your travel booked under the one program why not break the trip up into smaller bites & do a mixture of QF Partner Awared/AAdvantage Miles Saver award (purchasing points)/paid commercial airfare on FJ as detailed below:
Ticket one Qantas Classic/Partner Award - MEL CX HKG AY x/HEL AY LHR (economy class)
Booked on
www.qantas.com.au using multi city tool & ticking the box "select Classic Awards only". No J class award availability however if you take a day flight MEL QF HKG & have 1 or 2 nights in HKG then day flights HKG AY x/HEL AY LHR it's manageable as you're not trying to sleep on overnight flights in whY.
Wed 11 Sep QF029 MEL/HKG 0935/1710 (4 economy seats available both days) 30,000 points each
Thu 12 Sep
Fri 13 Sep AY062 HKG/HEL 0930/1510 (4 economy seats available)
Fri 13 Sep AY833 HEL/LHR 1600/1710 (4 economy seats available) 50,000 points each
Total cost for ticket 1 is 80,000 QF ff points plus AUD432.02 pp person (QF credit card fee is extra)
Ticket 2 AA Miles Saver Award ticket CDG AB x/TXL AB JFK // LGA AA DFW AA HNL (econ/Business/First/First)
Booked on
www.aa.com selecting AAdvantage Award tab then multi sector itinerary. You may even be able to do the booking & put it on hold while you purchase the points or call them & see if they can book it in one pnr & deduct the points from each of the 4 accounts. I don't know what dates you want but I checked early October & availability wasn't a problem. Another alternative trans-Atlantic on the Miles Saver Award is AY CDG x/HEL JFK as it's very difficult to get J awards on the AA non-stops CDG/JFK even 331 days in advance. The CDG/HNL allows one stopover which would be NYC in your case.
You'd be in economy CDG/TXL then Business TXL/JFK then the Miles Saver J fare books into F domestically in the US as long as it's a 2 class cabin & J if a 3 class cabin. Why not take advantage of the buy AA bonus miles offer until 31 July 2013. Purchasing 40,000 points gives you a bonus 10,000 so the total cost to buy the 50,000 needed for this trip would be USD1,100.00 per person plus taxes USD67.50 totalling USD1,217.50.
Total cost of ticket 2 is AUD1,467.00 pp (USD1,150.00 plus tax = USD1,217.50 to purchase miles plus taxes of USD130.50 per person on the ticket - total USD1,348.00)
Ticket 3 Fiji Airways Special fare HNL/NAN (via CXI) NAN/MEL economy class (needs overnight in NAN)
Book through
www.fijiairways.com travel is economy as Business was four times the price! The stopover in Christmas Island in Kiribati helps break up the journey. Not sure how long this Special fare is on sale for so I would book it asap along with the other tickets if your dates are confirmed but don't forget to take out travel insurance before you pay to make sure you're covered for cancellation penalties due to unforeseen circumstances.
Tue 08 Oct HNL/NAN FJ823 1200/1935+1 (via CXI)
overnight NAN 09Oct
Thu 10 Oct NAN/MEL FJ931 1840/2330
Total cost of ticket 3 is approx AUD652.00 pp (Airfare USD475.00 taxes USD124.42 Total USD599.42)
All up approx cost for airfares & taxes for 4 pax is AUD10,204.08.