So I have read the very long "OW100F" thread. very interesting.

Not that I am trying to do the same thing as the OP in that thread, but I fear I may need to....let me explain.

I need to go from LAX to MEL for a weekend (ish) in Jan for a wedding. Obviouisly the most direct route would be LAX-MEL-LAX on QF - but likelyhood of an award other than in Y is next to 0%. I repeat - I am only going for a weekend - so I would rather slowly peel back my finger nails one by one than do it in Y. I need to go in F (J as a compromise).

So it looks like I have a couple of options:

145k All Partner award - and try a routing on TN, CX or combo of JL/CX and BA/QF via SIN/BKK/HKG/NRT.

OW180F - would not make sense with CX/BA/QF as the above option would be the same routing for fewer miles. But this one would make sense if the only availability I found was something like LAX-LHR-NRT-HKG-MEL-HKG-LAX. And such a routing would still be OW180F (approx 15000 miles) as the only stopover is MEL?

A side question - I assume that award availability is award availability, no matter which type of award you end up ticketing it under (ie 145k or OW180F)?