Thank you for the informative post! I figured it would be difficult getting out of SYD on Jan 2..may have to look at coming back New Year's Day. Traveling with a large family, I am already aware we may have to split up coming back. I will have b/u ZED's on AC, TN, PR, CX, FJ and HA...thank goodness ZED's (ID-95 on Hawaiian) are fully refundable! Besides those, being active military, we can fly space-available on military aircraft so that is another option we have.

Basically if we can get OUT of SYD (where my airline does NOT fly), we should be fine, as they go pretty much everywhere else..again, depending on the flight loads. Looks like we may be flying on QF now out of LAX. AC will still be our back-up if LAX fails.

Thanks for the write-up..I'll try to post back on our experience in the upcoming weeks.