If you don't hear anything back, I'd PM AL-SYD in the next couple of days, I had posted a thread on LAX-AKL and he gave me some ideas for alternatives.

Speaking of which, can you give me an idea how much the taxes/fees were for your passes? I'm budgeting about $100 for mine, and think it would be similar to yours.

Also, have you listed yet with QF? From what I've heard, some agents are very friendly and will give you info as to days of week, etc...while others do not. For some reason I'd expect QF to be pretty friendly.

The other ways I know of getting LAX-SYD w/partners are:
UA (nonstop)
HA (through HNL)
I'm sure there's tons of others.