Originally Posted by
ttfitz
Yeah, it might come down to that. My 14-year-old daughter, though, REALLLLY wants to spend some time in Southern California (we don't make trips often, so I think she sees this as her big chance to do everything), and it wouldn't be easy for Dad to tell his little girl that we couldn't after we talked about doing just that. Particular if the reason was "The mean ole airline won't let us get seats."
<Off-topic advice redacted by moderator> Some ideas to explore:
1. It may be much easier to spend time in LA if she is willing to fly in coach. Each additional ticket in J/F probably double or triples the difficulty of finding availability. If she is willing to ride in the back of the bus while you are in the front, that may mean the difference between possible and impossible to schedule a stopover in LAX.
2. You can visit LAX/SAN any time for a few hundred dollars over a long weekend. (Maybe you don't make this a practice, but you could.) I would imagine it would be a much more enriching experience to spend an extra week in Australia rather than in part of the US.
Having recently planned a QF Australian adventure for myself and my husband, I can say that even finding two tickets in a non-coach cabin required flexibility on dates, flexibility on routing through the US, and flexibility on destination cities in Australia. YMMV.