I am flying QF12 next May in business class Sydney to JFK booked with agent.

I am flying QF12 next May in business class Sydney to JFK booked with agent. Qantas over phone says I cannot request first upgrade to lax as not avail between lax and jfk and same ticket. Qantas says reissue ticket into two separate tickets (at a cost through agent) agent says this is "illegal" (their actual words, agent well known company I used often for business travel) and cannot split QF 12 legs. Is there anyway to request upgrade consideration for first leg ? It doesn't even seem' possible to buy first class from Sydney to jfk on that flight ! What am I doing wrong ? thanks everyone .

last time i flew Sydney to JFK on QF12 which was booked directly on the Qantas Website the Upgrade request was split into two legs and i had to request two separate upgrades.

1. Sydney > LAX
2. LAX > JFK

Whilst i was only upgrading from Premium Economy to Business (which was available on both the a380 and b747) not sure how it works through agents though.

Hi lmpf,

I'm pretty sure it can be done. Tell the agent to call QIC (QANTAS Industry Centre) and ask for a waiver to reissue as 2 sectors for the purpose of requesting an upgrade.

Normally, an agent has to 'buy' the sector in the reservation system as SYD1JFK - the '1' indicating the stop in LAX with the same flight number throughout. What the agent has done is the way that the airline wants it done (the illegal bit is that airlines can send a whopping great fine to the agent for buying as two sectors when they offer it as one - airlines use it to control yield from the res system). 

If QIC won't do it for the agent, they should be able to call their QANTAS rep to see if they can arrange it.  Make sure that you can actually get definitely get an upgrade on the sector you need before you go ahead with it - best to get a name of the person that you speak to, which department they're in, and what time you spoke to them.

Agents can pretty much do anything that QANTAS can do directly - just has to be done slightly differently sometimes.

Hope this helps.

Thank you !!! I will try what you have suggested !