LA has AKL-SYD rights and flies 3-class, shows A availability but apparently isn't very free with actually letting it be used (I've got CX paper right now). Should I call LAN directly and grovel?

That's the only thing you can do but it's difficult. LA is very tight with A class availability and even once you have A inventory, getting a seat assigned is a further battle.

That is quite an interesting flight in that it is also a QF codeshare (QF322) and LA and QF handle this codeshare arrangement with fixes seating allocations.

There are only 5 F seats on the aircraft (row 1) and this is usually with a fixed division between QF and LA such as QF has seats 1A and 1C, while LA has seats 1D, 1J and 1L.

The have a similar division of seats for J and Y cabins. Its interesting to view the same flight (LA801 and QF322) seat maps on the same date using a tool such as ExpertFlyer and see the seats available to each airline to sell/allocate.

I don't know if they are able to sell more than their allocates seats each.

However, on the random date I checked (10th July), both LA801 and QF322 have A available (F4A4 and F1A1 respectively, implying LA is willing to sell QF's one remaining seat as well as their own 3 unallocated F seats). So perhaps you need to wait until closer to the flight date for both LA and QF to open up A seats on that segment.

Yes, that is precisely the situation -- the F seats are "opened up" about 2 weeks prior to flight date. And F4A4 probably means LA is willing to sell all 5 seats (4, 7 and 9 are the magic numbers indicating "lots" of seats are still left). The problem is that there are only 20 F seats per week, thus one convention or board meeting can sell out the whole week (and this happens often enough that LA and QF keep those F seats for sale as F until close to the flight date). Making planning a trip on this route a bit of a high risk, esp. as D is often sold out. Of course a simple reissue to route via NA would solve this problem (provided you have a couple of extra segments to allow for some routing flexibility); also LA is very bad at reissues for OWE tickets. I guess this problem disappears by next year when LAN drops F service.

Lan is not dropping F service on their overwater A340 routes, unless there has been some other news I hadn't heard.

The 763s are being converted until April 2008. The A340s will be converted after that, so it is actually 2 years from now when F disappears (but the new J is in some ways better than the old F, LAN even has duvets for new J).

Interestingly, after asking CX again to see about getting some A seats from the published inventory and getting "we can't see their computer, we'll send them a message again" I called LAN directly.

The LAN agent couldn't even find the flight (LA801 AKL-SYD) in her CRS, tried to convince me I was dreaming, it must be a codeshare, etc. She was quite nice about it, don't get me wrong, but obviously couldn't bring up the flight. When I double-checked myself and insisted, she put me on hold for at least 5 minutes, came back, apologized profusely, and gave me the seats.

Strange that she had such a problem - are they CRS challenged?

Apparently if you are just booking AKL-SYD sector, LA has no traffic rights to sell those seats but giving it to QF instead. So you must book the seats on QF codeshare.

That is not true. Australia and NZ have open skies across the tasman. Any airline that is authorised to fly to Australia or NZ can freely carry pax between Australia and NZ.

Booking QF codeshare is much more expensive than booking under LA flight number, unless the trans-tasman leg is part of a longer itinerary (eg RTW).

I had SYD-AKL on my RTW both last year and this, both times using the LA flight designator.

FWIW, QF's J product trans-tasman is very good, I don't know if I'd re-arrange my schedule to get on one of the 4-weekly LA flights when there are so many more options on QF (not just time/date-wise, but also route-wise, such as AKL-MEL and SYD-CHC, and probably ADL/BNE also). And I'm pretty sure I've heard that the LA catering on SYD-AKL (which is all we're talking about here according to the OP) isn't anything special, they save the good stuff for the transpac segment to SCL.

The OP is wanting to fly first. QF has no first trans-tasman.

Here's my comparison of SYD-AKL on LAN F and QF biz, based on flying it last Sept.

LAN
2 of 5 F seats filled; very quiet cabin
Seat that goes flat, so nice for a nap
Poor food, both quantity and quality
Indifferent FAs

Qantas
Large biz cabin on 747, 90% full
Decent seat, but certainly not comparable to a flat seat
Good food, both quality and quantity
Attentive FAs

Not to mention that LA's flight requires you to wake up at the crack of dawn to catch the flight to SYD.

When I did this flight many years ago, I couldnt' book it under the LA flight number but rather on the QF code. Maybe they have changed.

Gee, I had no idea.