No it does not. @Brettmcg is referring to standalone domestic bookings where there are no international segments whereas I am referring to domestics that connect to an international segment.
For international seat release bookings, where the domestic connection is knocked back by the robot...
The written policy is that the domestic connection can be manually forced in as long as C class is available for J, or S class is available for Y, on the domestic on a standalone basis (eg...
This depends on whether your source of avios is buying them or earning them.
For example, if you bought the avios, in many cases using the lowest avios amount and maximum cash can be the best value depending on what the value is that you assign to the avios, because you stretch your bought lot...
For QF, the equal or higher rule is based on pure dollar figures. QF don't restrict changing between cabins.
Some airlines however have rules where it must be equal or higher AND also equal or higher RBD (ie. subclass). Eg. if your ticket was in D class, you can only go to D class or higher and...
AA scrapped that and fired Vasu Raja over it too... heads certainly rolled, as the industry long expected when that change was initially announced. AA realised eventually, albeit a bit late, that you don't mess with the travel trade.
You qualify by virtue of having an international ticket that bookends the domestics, irrespective of how long you stopover. Basically if you have an international ticket... (that can be train, ferry, cruise, flights...),, you're covered,
For more expensive domestic fares, you can exempt two taxes on the domestic ticket if you also have an international ticket.
You have to purchase from a travel agent that knows how to do tax exemptions and they must be located outside of the US though, but in your example you could probably get...