I don't know exactly how to search for this topic, so I apologize if it has been asked and answered repeatedly. However, I am really interested in this since even the trip from Chicago or Detroit to Europe is quite long enough for me. What are the ways to do this between the Midwest of the US and Australia? If this has been answered repeatedly, could you tell me how to search for it or cite specific messages for me? Thanks so much.

Mid west-california (LA or SF)
California-Hawaii
Hawaii-Auckland
Auckland-Sydney.

Has the pricing structure changed? Normally with a bit of poking around you find it will cost a fortune to get a Pacific stopover except in special cases. Also it will normally save you a ton to ticket seperately the roundtrip to California and the roundtrip over the Pacific.

Basically that favors a LAX stopover since SFO tends to have fewer and more pricey seats. But LA doesn't have to be grim, and no rental car or freeway bashing is needed. There is excellant bus service to Santa Monica and beyond, and you can get priority visitation to Getty, and the new Malibu Getty museum for instance.

Fiji is the place for a stopover. Many wonderful resorts and accomodations and hey, you will really know you have hit the South Pacific.

Viking -- I think you are correct about the pricing structure. I have poked around looking for ways to get to Australia without the LONG, LONG air trip. It is really quite funny to put in from Hawaii to Australia and see many of the routings go BACK THRU Los Angeles! But there are some that go direct and they look pretty expensive.

I have traveled from the East Coast of the U.S. to Australia several times and have done it both with and without a stopover in L.A. I dislike long plane rides as much as anyone, but from now on I will just go to Sydney as directly as I can. Having a one-day stopover just seems to make everything longer (and I'd much rather spend that extra day in Sydney than L.A.)

We found that it was much cheaper to buy a roundtrip plane ticket to LAX and a round trip ticket from LAX to Auckland than going direct from Detroit. We went in January and since weather could potentially be a problem we gave ourselves 24 hours between each flight (in case of delays). We had no problems whatsoever and enjoyed our overnight stay in Santa Monica.

There are plenty of options for breaking a trip between the west coast of the US and Australia. Air NZ go to many of the most interesting places - so check em out!!

Hawaii, Tahiti, Cooks, Fiji and wonderful NZ - but no point in stopping at any of them for one night!! Might just as well grin and bear a long flight.

I just searched on Expedia.

RT ORD-SYD in Dec $2084 (United)

RT ORD-LAX 295
RT LAX-SYD 1797
-----
$2092

Of course the prices change by the hour, but it seems similar now.

In fact, when I checked on Orbitz for a multi-city trip with a stop in LAX, the fare was 2075 on United.

BTW, we went from Philly to AKL with FF on USAir. The FF needed was the same as from LAX-AKL. So we stopped over in LAX for a day without addition charge.

I thought viking was referring to a stopover IN the Pacific -- such as Hawaii -- not LAX or SFO. That is also what I was referring to.

viking wrote

&lt;Also it will normally save you a ton to ticket seperately the roundtrip to <b>California</b> and the roundtrip over the Pacific.&gt;

Viking also wrote: &quot;Normally with a bit of poking around you find it will cost a fortune to get a Pacific stopover except in special cases. &quot;

Best wishes on your trip.

LAX&lt;-&gt;SYD is ruthlessly competitive and if you have to go over $1000 maybe it includes hotel. This takes careful shopping and sometimes a bit of waiting. At least this is how it has been in past years. For a decade I have subscribed via travelocity to OZ fares and am notified about sales, but some of them can't be found by online queries.

Look into the new JETSTAR (.com) bargain airline HNL&lt;-&gt;SYD or MEL. May not yet offer too low fares, but...

Mid Pacific stopovers are sometimes advertised as free or a slight addon, but that is for the absurdly high fares to begin with. Airmiles also can be poor value, but United charges much less than the others between HNL-SYD (still highway robbery compared to Europe, etc).

Oh, one more possibility. You are near Canada and in the past they have had very attractive and flexible fares, although possibly changed since some carriers dropped out. The flights normally stopover in Hawaii anyway and maybe the Toronto departure stops in Vancouver too. All this can take a few weeks or months to get in on a good sale, and not during high season.

Rats, Jetstar doesn't do HNL til November. Now you can use them for a cheap OZ-NZ excursion or closing an open jaw trip. They are also expanding to Bali, BKK, and elsewhere from OZ.

viking -- I appreciate all your help. This is probably a future trip for us -- if I can stand the long flight. That's why I am asking this question. So there's no hurry for us.

Continental flies LA to Cairns via Guam.

Hawaiain airlines has an interesting &quot;day&quot; flight fron honolulu to sydney.

You could go
west coast-hawaii and then hawaii- sydney with them.

www.airpacific.com/ - it is Fiji's airline and when you call they sometimes offer a stopover deal that isn't even on the website. You may need to look for your own deal to the coast - Vancouver or LAX.

WK