I've long read of upper class award travel to Australia being the holy grail of AA award travel, but never thought it would matter to me. Turns out I was wrong, and I now need to book a couple of LAX-BNE awards for next year. I can't do main cabin in those seats for that long a trip. (Premium economy would be fine, if and when AA starts offering awards in it...).

Anyway, the question is this: with these awards being so scarce, should I just call AA and pay whatever AAnytime award level X charge they might quote, or is this a routing where an award booking service is likely to come up with something significantly better?

Thanks!