Separate tickets=separate contracts. The end of UA's contract was LAX. No one is blackmailing someone into flying across the Pacific on a US flagged carrier. (Amazing that another thread has patriotism thrown in the face of an airline for not waiving excess fees on uA and a foreign carrier for someone in the US military, yet patriotism to US flagged carriers/employees/profits is non-existant) I mean, if you get a cab to get you to a concert, and the cab breaks down, is the cab company liable for making sure you get to another similar concert? Of course not. UA dropped the ball for you here, but UA has ZERO control over the separate ticket/contract you purchased with it's main competitor on the US-Australia route. ANd UA's reservation system would have shown you had no such connection, because it was booked separately. As fare as UA knew, LAX was your final destination. Who know, maybe, if UA had seen that you had a continuing ticket on the same reservation/ticket as your PIT-LAX ticket, they may not have taken the extra stop, and possible found another plane to help out the stranded IAD passengers. It is all hindsight now.
The extra stop thing is VERY RARE, and it really hurt you in this case. I am willing to bet that UA compensated you very well as a 1k. The "warm fuzzy" you could have gotten from your inconvenience helping out those stranded in IAD was overshadowed by your own personal inconvenience.
As for being stuck on a UA flight for 14 hours, as a 1K in economy, you would have had economy plus, something Qantas would NOT give you for the same price. If you purchased C or F on QF, you should have booked the ticket from origin to destination on one ticket (if you insisted on QF over UA, an AA/oneworld ticket) as you could have most almost obtained an elite level status on just the one ticket.
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