There are American Airlines flights from Sydney to New York city’s Newark airport for less than A$1,000 – specifically from A$994.
You can find the sub A$1,000 fares scattered around August/September/October/November 2016 - perfect for the Northern Hemisphere fall
http://travelhackables.com/2016/04/12/american-airlines-sydn…
Don't think so. Last time i went it was qantas with aa code numbers. Basically the second leg you clear customs at lax get your bags and then recheck them before going through screening etc. Layover in lax was around 2 hours. The good thing is that not everyone goes straight through so the 747 for the last 5 hour leg was near empty.
That makes the Virgin offer a lot more attractive, given there is no need to do a second stopover en route to New York. Given you can't break the journey you would be pretty damn tired & smelly upon arriving, only to have to commute to whatever borough you're staying in all the way from Newark,NJ lol!
Are these flights upgradable using frequent flyer points
I do not think that QF would allow if it is booked on QF - it would be deemed as Red eDeal which is not eligiable
If booked on AA, I think that you should be able to use the SWU if you have one - but again not sure how many people would be EP with AA to have the SWU to start with
WTF r EP SWU?
Executive Platinum, AA's version of the higher tier frequent flyer
System Wide Upgrade
Can the layovers be used as a stopover?
Also, have a look at Bestjet, I found a similar price ($1007) for the October dates (10-20/10/16) flying Virgin and with only 1 stop both ways (LAX) on the SYD-EWR route.
It was actually cheaper ($1004) to fly BNE-EWR (via SYD & LAX) on Virgin!! I am pretty tempted!