Randy:

I love your answers to the questions that come up in the Q&A for the MilesLink newsletter, but you got a couple things in this week's wrong. Despite your claim that "Australia is an elusive award destination because none of the U.S. carriers serve that country direct, unlike years gone by," United still flies to SYD from SFO and LAX. That doesn't necessarily help for the person asking the question since OnePass miles cannot be redeemed on UA (yet ) but it is certainly more accurate. Also, HA serves the HNL-SYD route, and I would imagine there are a few Hawaiians out there who would be upset to see that you've ceded their state from the Union.

Second, Continental Micronesia does fly from Guam to Cairns, but not to Sydney as you suggest, "...then continue on Continental Micronesia to either Cairns or Sydney."

Better advice for the guy would be to sign up for a QF account online for free and use their tool to query the various flights/gateways until they find the ones they want and then call CO to book. The details on how to do it are actually covered the FAQ on the CO forum here.

Thanks for listening to/reading my rant.

S.