I have to book two upcoming "nested" trips MEL-JFK-MEL and JFK-CDG-JFK.

I have to book two upcoming "nested" trips MEL-JFK-MEL and JFK-CDG-JFK.

Being a QF FF, the AU-US leg will be on Qantas. Is there anything I can do to get credits on the US-EU leg? Am happy to fly EK if necessary.

Trip is in Jan/Feb 2013.

Hi GW,

American Airlines fly NYC-GDG. As AA is a OneWorld partner, you'll earn full status credits on an AA ticket.

--Chris

Chris is absolutely right. Of course, flying AA is fairly miserable and you don't have a lot of flight choice; you might have a better time of the transatlantic flight (and be able to get a double whack at status credits) by connecting through Heathrow on BA.

Other alternatives would be airberlin via TXL or DUS, Finnair via HEL or Iberia via MAD or BCN.

BA would be your best option if you wanted to avoid AA.

Why would you fly EK via DXB? :/ The Qantas-Emirates alliance won't apply until April anyway.

You will definitely earn points with AA on the NYC/PAR/NYC, as stated regardless of class of travel it is a pretty poor experience - they use their old 767's and 757's on that route so if travelling in business no flat bed, or if in economy probably no inseat entertainment and just hope any sort of service

A good option to consider is Open Skies the BA subsidary carrier that operates nonstop from Newark to Orly airport twice a day.  This flight offers a full flat bed business class, premium economy, and a small economy cabin - but with service and product in line with BA.   Orly is a good airport to fly into as well as it is more central than CDG.  It does operate with a BA flight number so you should earn points on the service

Alternatively take BA via London and one of their 11 flights a day giving you a choice of Newark or JFK airports and CDG and Orly airports.  They also have a further 5 codeshare flights with American but avoid the codeshares the product on AA to London is better than it is to Paris but still not great until they deploy their new 777's on the route

Connecting via Madrid or Helsinki adds a lot of travelling time for what is a relatively quick transatlantic nonstop flight of 7 hours and will bring the journey closer to 12 - 13 hours

Do be careful – OpenSkies, despite being part of BA, is not affiliated with OneWorld (much like Jetstar is to Qantas). This means that even though there are BA flight numbers available, you aren't likely to get Qantas points or status credits when booking to fly on OpenSkies.