I was on the blower for about 90mins today with the award reservations people in the US trying to book a SYD-USA return. There seems to be limited availability in WHY for nonstop SYD-LAX trips, so I'll have to connect through BNE/MEL/AKL. That is undesirable, but fine.

While on the phone, I was also using the award booking engine to check other routings, and there was numerous times that I suggested a routing which the agent said was not available. We double checked dates and flight numbers, and she said no availability. Has anyone else experienced this, and is it normal? It seemed quite strange to me that there would be availability on the web, but not to the agents themselves. The other way around, maybe, but this way is just odd.

Anyway, the other tack-on to this post is that because of the additional transfers, I was told that I would have to do 2 tickets. Since the total for the whole trip is 110k, but the two seperate ones are 80k and 30k, I couldn't care less. But is there some reason why I should try and avoid ticketing seperately?

BTW, the proposed itin was SYD-BNE-LAX-JFK-BOS, with just the JFK-BOS on an AA jungle jet. Since I'm booking this for my NB brother, the 5 hour layover in JFK isn't desireable, but I'm sure he'll appreciate food and IFE in Y, which he wouldn't get on AA. The only routing possible on the return was with a 12 hour layover in LAX, and connecting through MEL.