Originally Posted by
tragg99
Thanks for your suggestion for the other options. I am uncertain how I would go about booking them using AA miles, though. AA's website does show a HA flight award for 65k from HNL to SYD (which I did indeed place on hold). But the flight is at 7:30 in the morning, making the difficulty and expense of getting to HNL on a separate ticket (and likely getting a hotel for the night before) start to defeat the purpose of using miles.
While you would still be stuck with the overnight hotel in HNL, if you can find a SAAver F award seat on the previous day and place that on hold, it's
possible that an AA agent could combine the two held reservation into a single award for 80K. Look for AA/AS nonstops LAX-HNL, or AS nonstops SAN-HNL. (On an international award, AA allows 24 hours to connect, so flying in the previous day would not, in and of itself, preclude use of a single award.)
Be aware, though, of the possible "reverse married segment" issue, where flights may be available as individual awards, but not as a through award. (See the current thread in this forum about the through-award issue.)
Edited to add: If you haven't already done so, I would also search for SAN-SYD award availability. Getting from the Los Angeles area to SAN does not have to be that expensive: there's Amtrak, Greyhound, and maybe even a one-way car rental if you can get a good price on that.