I am going to Australia and New Zealand this summer. I contacted Qantas vacations to get a price. The price the quoted is much higher than I estimated based on travelocity, Expedia, and the Qantas website. The difference between what I was quoted by the Qantas vacation person and the on-line sites ranged from 800-1100 dollars for two people traveling. The explaination I received was that they were much more flexible than the on-line sites if I wanted to cancel or change my booking. I am baffled. How are other people booking their flights? The following is my route:

LAX-Brisbane-Cairns-Auckland <drive to Queenstown> Queenstown-Auckland-LAX.

It's been my experience (flying out of Australia and within Australia with Qantas) that more flexible tickets are more expensive, i.e. you can change dates without further payment.

BTW whose summer?

You can compare the flexibility with the on-line tickets. Fare conditions are available on-line.

You will surely pay more if you want to book it all up front with the same trzvel agent. You will pay more if you want to change dates, etc.

That isn't unusual.

If you want to busk it a bit and are stopping in NZ - why not look at Air NZ?

I don't know if they fly to Brissie but I believe they fly to CNS.

Either way you get routed via Auckland and just have to buy an internal flight in OZ to get you from CNS to BRS or vice versa,

Cheap as chips if you book far enough in advance - but, being cheap - are not refundable and you can't change the dates.

Your choice.

Always more than one way to skin a cat.

Of course Air New Zealand flies to Brisbane from Auckland, it's one of their busiest routes. They fly to many destinations around the world. Check out their website.