I spoke to a lady at the Virgin Australia call centre this morning and asked if I could make sure our luggage wasn't checked all the way through from LAX to Auckland, as I'd like access to it during our Sydney stop over. (We're not going to take the last flight from Sydney to Auckland, because we live in Australia, but this was a really cheap flight if booked from AKL to LAX return)

She told me that it was up to the discretion of the person checking us in, and couldn't guarantee it. So I'd like to know if anyone has ever had any trouble NOT getting their luggage checked through?