I have read articles by people who like these flights, mainly because of international lounge access and also bigger A330/787 aircraft.
What I'm having difficulty with is how do you actually search for them? Is there a search engine where you can filter for this? Or some published list of flights?
Just a comment on the aircraft thing … those aircraft are fine for domestic terminals. The main reason people do this is, as far as I know, because the international lounges (at least for Qantas) are
much nicer, particularly if you have a status that lets you in the first-class lounge. There are a few Sydney to Perth QF flights on the likes of A330’s at the moment, and they use domestic terminals at either end.
The extra security to get into the international terminal is, of course, a downside; also, international limitations on the content of carry-on are a bit stricter & they’re enforced.
As for finding them … not easy. They only occur when a flight has an eventual destination that’s overseas, but for whatever reason they stop at an AU airport along the way. For example I had a strong desire to try the Dreamliner when Jetstar first got them & the Melbourne-Sydney flight we caught was then going from Sydney to somewhere in southeast asia.
Those flights tend to get canned more often than average, too. Or at least, they did back then.
