The phrase "to get the run around"

Is "get the run around" a US idiom or is it widely understood throughout the English-speaking world?

I'm an American and recently I was in Argentina making a domestic flight connection from Buenos Aires to another Argentinian city. My flight's gate-time was repeatedly delayed (we finally left 6 hours late) and when I asked gate attendants and other airline staff what the problem was and when the plane would arrive at the gate I either got conflicting answers, or was referred to other staff who kept referring me to others, etc, with no useful information. I sometimes got the sense they knew more than they were saying. I could see on the departure/arrivals board that many flights were affected. (the next day I found out in the news that there had been a short air traffic controllers' strike).

In the US we call the experience I had with the airline staff "getting the run around". I'm writing an email to an Australian friend in which I want to describe my experience and my question is, is "getting the run around" an idiom that is understood throughout the English-speaking world or is it unique to America? Is there another widely-used expression that might substitute? Is there an Australian slang or idiomatic phrase that expresses my experience?