Originally Posted by
rodsren
I think it’s going to be a long haul if I really want to get this seat on July 15th. They are showing very poor availability out of LA in July to any of their non-stop cities (MEL, SYD, Brisbane).
If you're only going to Australia then search for F to destinations that will transit Australia. Most common is to somewhere in NZ - AKL, WLG, DUD, ZQN, CHC may all have F availability LAX to xxx via SYD/MEL/BNE when the direct flights don't. If Oz is the end destination then you book the NZ destination as a single award and just don't use the onward flights from Oz to NZ. The points cost is the same, so no loss there.
Return is a bit trickier because you still need to find the flight back, but there's ways of playing that too. I know a couple of people who do a "stopover" in Oz to allow them time there, then pick up the original outbound flights to NZ and immediately turnaround for the return to LAX via Oz again. You can also do the two flights separately (to avoid the ticket being voided if you ditch the initial Trans Tasman part), ditch the onward flights to NZ and then, because the return starts in NZ, they use 10k points to fly the Tasman to pick up the NZ flight back through Oz and on to LAX. That's a bit wasteful of points, but if there's nothing else available direct it works.