Thank you Gardyloo and Mrwunrfl. You would think I would know more about flying. Have more than 1.5 million miles in the air on over 50 different airlines to all continents through over 150 airports and this is demanding work.. Originally picked Boston as it is the eastern most large city in the US and I have a daughter who lives there. She just bought a 2 bedroom condo so we would have a free place to stay. FYI hotels in Boston really vary in price depending on dates. Once we went to visit and hotels like the Westin were $880 a night.
So I went back to the drawing board and returned from SCL to IAH which is much shorter than a flight from SCL to Boston. Thinking that I could later fly from someplace like IAD to CDG which would further decrease the number of miles but do not see a way to do this. Flying later to CDG from IAH decreases my total miles to 34803 but still costs $7522 a person. Also could not book flights from ZQN to SMF, only to SFO. Adding another $5-6 K for return flights or less if upgrading by miles or using miles gives a total cost of about 13-14 K or less. RT business to TYO is $4600/CDG probably about $3500/AKL about $7600/ IAH and SCL about $5000 for a total of $20.7 K so significant savings. I do have a ton of United miles/ Chase and AMX points too. Still would be nice to find a way other than combining South America and Europe to bring my miles below 34K. So close.....I should think this would give me enough PQP to keep Gold for next year as well. The real question I have here is can I fly to CDG from the east coast instead of from IAH which would decrease my total miles under 34K?

Geography is just working against you. Even a "bare bones" route that includes both New Zealand and Chile - HND-AKL-SFO-IAH-SCL-IAH-CDG-HND (which doesn't include returning to California after Chile at all) comes in at 33,990 miles, just 10 miles short of the 34K maximum mileage tier. Add ZQN, or SMF, or pretty much any other stop anywhere, will take you over the limit. (Also note there's no Star Alliance nonstop service from Boston to Paris; you'd have to go via Newark or Montreal, adding even more miles.)

Now what you might be able to do would be to break the trip at Houston for a separate purchased (or miles redemption) trip back to Sacramento, then return to IAH for the flight to Paris. The domestic round trip, bought outside the RTW, would save a lot of money IF the Star Alliance calculators return a sub-34K mile overall distance for the trip. The distances shown on the Great Circle Mapper are pretty close, but the airlines' own computations of the distances can vary by a percent or two, which in this case could end up taking you over the top. It might be worth running a thought experiment, though.

You might be able to cut 5000 miles from the RTW ticket by dropping SFO/SMF. Go TYO-AKL-IAH-SCL-IAH-CDG-TYO. You would have to get two roundtrips between home and IAH, though.

FWIW you can drop ZQN. Those NZ fares are inexpensive. Probably under $150 roundtrip in economy, under 2 hours each way, AKL-ZQN.

I hope you don't mind me questioning a couple of things.

>> should think this would give me enough PQP to keep Gold for next year
If it is enough, what is the value of the status next year? Will you earn a status bonus for the RTW ticket? What is the difference between the miles and PQPs you will earn on that ticket between having gold status vs silver or general member? You will be flying a lot in biz class (no status upgrades needed) and will have access to lounges. Maybe gold status will give you a worthwhile benefit on other flying you will do?

>> do have a ton of United miles/ Chase and AMX points too
What are you saving those miles for? Those miles/points are depreciating assets. The $5000 not spent on the RTW ticket can appreciate, maybe beating inflation. But you know that.

About miles depreciation. This is all business class award seats.

Last January, I booked LAX-TYO for 60K AA miles - the lowest price possible, for travel late October. Then I found a flight MEL-LAX for 80K AA miles flyiing on FJ, only maybe 10K more than minimum) for travel in early November.

Booked TYO-MEL for 40K but it was a connecting flight on FJ and the long-haul flight to Fiji only had angled lie-flat. So I kept looking to use United or AA miles to find better. I looked every day. No luck on AA and all that United offered was economy seats. IIRC, most, maybe all of those UA options required two stops. It was pitiful so in March I gave up looking at United.

Then on April 30 I decided to take another look at United. There were business class awards available for every day in October for TYO-MEL for 55K miles. Connecting flights, of course. United isn't going to have the ANA nonstops. My options were to connect in Beijing or overnight connection in Perth. I chose the former.

The next day I was hoping to find availability on the nonstop flight. Of course, found none. I did find that the mileage requirement had doubled overnight to 110K miles. The flyertalkers were all upset because it was systemwide.

About a week later, in early April, AA came through with a JAL nonstop for 40K miles, but I didn't go for that. I was so lucky to get that United award for 55K in business class despite the fact that the trip on Air China took 24 hours from the Tokyo Hilton to arrival at the gate in MEL

Today, TYO-MEL would be 50K United miles in economy.