Kangaroo Booking Fun!
 

Aside from my earlier thread (trying to sort out my domestic focus going forwards), I've got another item on the horizon: A long-awaited trip to Australia in December. While I've got a placeholder Y award ticket LAX-BNE parked, said ticket is fully refundable without fees (thank you Elevate Gold!), the idea of crossing the Pacific in Y was never high on my list...and VA appears to be even stingier with award space than either I or the staff at the time of the placeholder booking expected (the VX-AS merger may not be helping).

So, I need advice on picking a carrier to park a Business Class ticket with. I can get to any of the main international gateways in the US on VX with an "internal" award; ditto HNL. So US airport is basically "whatever". On the Australian end, as far as I'm concerned SYD, BNE, and MEL are co-terminals (there's an overnight train BNE-SYD and one MEL-SYD). Ditto Canberra.

As far as getting the rest of the way there, however, it gets...interesting:
-FJ is the cheapest carrier at $2508-ish for a one-way ticket LAX-SYD and $2091 HNL-SYD. Unfortunately, they don't have lie-flat BC (though I've heard it's still a decent angle-flat) and their refund fee is 50% of the initial fare ($1000-1200!). This is mildly problematic on the off chance my trip blows apart. On the plus side, you get a day in Fiji (and potentially a touch-and-go at Christmas Island).
-HA is next in line. If HA had their new lie-flats in place they'd probably be my go-to at their present pricing ($2782 HNL-SYD/$3435 LAX-HNL-SYD)...but that rollout appears to be going glacially slow. They're also apparently non-refundable; if they were refundable I'd be tempted to gamble on the lie-flats...but given that I can get a better seat on a ton of domestic DL and VX flights the idea of a recliner on a trans-pacific flight doesn't thrill me much more than Y does.
-OZ is a strange outlier more due to their strange marketing ("Business" is apparently an angle-flat product while "Business Smartium" is full-flat...jokes about someone being too smartium for their own good come to mind). Their pricing is more favorable than HA, and incidentally $2751 JFK-INC-SYD saves me a lot of domestic travel games. The $200 cancel fee isn't horrid, and that appears to be refundable.

-NZ is the cheapest of the lie-flat options (hovering around $3660) LAX-AKL-SYD/BNE. The refund fee is $500, though, which may eliminate it from contention.
-SQ is next ($3710-3740 SFO/LAX-SIN-SYD) and there's destination flexibility within a few dollars (they serve most of the main airports in Australia). The refund fee appears to be $300. It also looks like doing this would have a not-insignificant chance of knocking me to SQ Silver (partly due to basically tracing the Pacific Rim).
-VA is next at $4735, but no refund fee. This was my preferred carrier from the start (I will confess in part due to a certain meta of being able to stitch together a trip involving the "three Virgins"...VX in the US, VA to Australia, and VS HKG-LHR-IAD...but also because of what I've heard about VA, mostly in a positive light). Consider VA to be the "cost ceiling" for this trip.

CX and QF more or less eliminate themselves on cost ($4939 and $5037, respectively...plus $600 in cancel fees on QF), though QF gets the Unusual Pricing Award for charging less JFK-SYD than LAX-SYD, in spite of it being one flight.

So...my instinct says SQ from LAX/SFO (if I really want a lie-flat) or FJ from HNL if I'm not going to get too worked up over that. Am I missing any serious options (which don't overshoot VA in cost)? And for those who've done it, how much is lie-flat vs angle-flat worth?

Edit: Refund/cancel is important because, while I intend to be in Australia come hell or high water for a chunk of the trip, knowing the family I'm coordinating with I put the odds of a major implosion/explosion of the trip at about 1-in-5. Suffice it to say that there's a history to be had of vacation meltdowns.

Edit 2: One option I had forgotten: VA BC LAX-SYD-LAX comes to $3900 (someone please explain this insanity to me...the idea of an R/T being minimally more expensive than an O/W makes at least some sense, but being nearly $1000 less is just strange), which is why I had remembered a lower fare for the VA leg(s). Does anyone know what VA's policy is if I fly the outbound and then bin the return (since I've already got my return happening the long way around)? I'm also prepared to just stick with the round-trip since I'd only eat perhaps $150 in fees...or to book an insanely far-off return and screw with getting back to Oz later.

To me another important factor is the segment lengths, or non stop compared to stopovers. One long segment then a short segment (or vice versa) is generally preferable to two mid length segments.

As you've found, this is also factored in to the prices you're seeing. FJ/HA for example offer two mid length flights that don't allow for much sleep at a low price, whereas QF offers a non stop flight that allows enough time for meals and a decent sleep.

The price scale you've shown is pretty typical and roughly reflects the relative hard and soft products of the airlines and their schedules/routes. It is really up to you to decide what value you place on those.

International longhaul return flights being cheaper than one ways is common in many markets. You could also see whether LAX-SYD in J returning SYD-LAX in Y is cheaper. I wouldn't worry about missing the return flight, if you call to cancel mid trip you may even get a partial refund.

VA doesn't seem to accommodate mixing Y and J (Y+ and J, yes, but the difference there is around $200 and from what I can tell the Y+ fare is technically a "saver" fare whereas VA doesn't do "saver" fares for J...resulting in the "refundable" o/w Y+ fare costing less than the also-refundable r/t J fare)

Is this what you got from the website or did you try call? I have no experience with VA but I do know this isn't possible on many websites, but is no problem if you call the airline (or use a travel agent).

There may however be a restriction on which fares are combinable - for instance no deeply discounted Y together with J. But this too is possible on some airlines if you just call.

Edited to add: very important - when combining a refundable fare with a non-refundable one, the whole ticket might become non refundable. Best to check that if this is what you plan to do.

You've indirectly raised a good point...when I run a multi-city booking I seem to get different fare rules (when I was first booking I got what amounted to "Business Class is always refundable" until I went to book and got rather heavy fees...I've since cancelled that booking [24-hour rule FTW]).

For the moment, the name of the game is figuring out when I ought to book by. If I wind up with a few extra days in Australia it's not the end of the world...I have ways I can kill a few days in a pinch (there are trains I would otherwise have no chance to take...even if they go places I have no reason to go;)).

I had a similar situation involving a VA ticket that I couldn't book online despite trying several sites (VA's own, Delta, Kayak and a couple of others). A travel agent was more than worth her modest fee for that alone. She became worth her weight in gold later, when I returned to the States during Delta's computer meltdown and my LAX-BOS flight was cancelled. Delta rebooked me on something absurd. She got through to them in minutes and got the last remaining seat on the flight I wanted.

After eight visits to Australia, ranging in time from 1 1/2 hours to three weeks, I'm not even close to running out of things I haven't done or seen that I really want to do or see. I doubt you'll need to find stuff to fill time. :)