Flying in a few days, questions on seating & carryons

[jrm27]

Hello all:

My long awaited trip is finally going to start on Sunday (LAX-SYD and then SYD-LAX). So excited! Anyways, I just had two questions that I'm hoping you can help me with.

1. The fellow I'm traveling with and I booked under the same confirmation number. I called Qantas the other day to see if our seats had yet been assigned. We're hoping to sit adjacent to one anther so we can work on the flight. The helpful agent told me that our LAX-SYD flight hadn't had seating assigned yet, but that our SYD-LAX had. She supposed that they were waiting until abtut 24 hours before departure to assign seating on our LAX flight. Has that been your experience? Does Qantas generally try to keep those that book together seated together?

2. I am generally a very light traveler. On this tip I'm not planning on checking a bag. Traditionally I travel with two satchels (messenger bags). One has my laptop and my DSLR in it. The other has a couple changes of clothes and a pair of shoes (i buy my toiletries at my destination so I don't have to deal with the travel hassle). I'm seeing conflicting information on the web.. should I be able to bring both of these on the plane without issue? Care to share your experiences? Thanks!

-jon

[Evan]

1.) yes 24hrs in advance, yes same bookings they attempt to seat together
2.) should be no issues, my current trip on QF,AA,BA so far i have had one towards max carryon size bag + a backpack + DSLR carry bag. Of course is anybody questioned i was prepared to check in the cloths bag.

Deoderant, shaving cream etc.. as long as its less than 100ml just put them in a clear 1l plastic bag and no issues at all really.

remember if you use the full body scanners remove everything from your pockets even things you would get through a metal detector, eg wallet or else they need you to remove it and pat you down.