Originally Posted by
beachfan
Awards to Australia are very tough to come by, among the hardest anywhere.
Be sure you will be happy with your choice of airlines to park your miles in even if you couldn't get to Australia.
I find right now, Alaska is some of the toughest miles to use in business except perhaps for redemptions on JAL.
Really? Have you tried a lot of different airlines in biz or do you focus on particular ones? I had success on JAL (first) last year from Sydney to Tokyo and Tokyo to JFK. There also seems to be lots of Emirates availability in business. Not cheap, but with the stopover in Dubai, it doesn't seem as bad. Two packages should be enough round trip. I've heard that Korean Air is a good route to go as well to/from Australia, although I haven't looked too closely there (they had good availability when I considered it last go around to Australia). Same goes for Cathay Pacific.
The one option I haven't completed ruled out is United. I found availability pretty last minute to Australia in Business last year on United. They are not my favorite airline by any means, especially for such a long flight, but it wasn't bad at all. There is the added bonus with United of having lots of flexibility with flights to/from Europe on other partners in business as well. Do you like United miles as a better option for getting to Australia over Alaska?