I just called Qantas North America-there is no more boomerang pass or any pass available to US travellers except the Aussie pass bought with a purchased international ticket. I was told I will have to buy individual one way tickets. Because of the limited days that Qantas flies Uluru-Melbourne, I may have to do Cairns-Melbourne-Uluru-Sydney instead of Cairns-Uluru-Melbourne-Sydney.
Cost looks to be $672-$688AU for the flights if all done on Qantas. If I take some flights on Virgin Blue I can save some money, $100 each. I'm thinking of skipping Uluru entirely as it is so expensive to get there and so expensive for the hotels, but we missed it 20 years ago. Is it really worth the time/money to go there? We'd probably stay 2 nights only.