mcgahat

The wife and I are sitting on about 1 million miles right now. In the past, we always used for F/J awards to SE Asia. They could always be a challenge to book at a reasonable rate but with a little elbow grease, not impossible. These days however, if I do find an award…..it is an all AA miles award that costs almost a million miles for two people in J. Using miles for upgrades isn’t very easy either as upgrades are tight. I do find domestic US inventory to be good and reasonably priced but we do not travel domestic as much as we do international.

So, I am serious where you folks are finding good value and spending your miles these days?

dogcanyon

I booked a DFW to Georgetown Guyana ticket about 2 weeks ago for 24,000 miles round trip in February where the cash price was around $1,200. Last February I got a DFW to Paramaribo Suriname ticket for 20,000 round trip where the cash price was around $1,100. (AA has since discontinued service there). In December I booked a one way EZE-JFK-DFW in Business for 50,000 miles where the cash price was about $4,500 (I believe the nonstop EZE-DFW in Business for the same date was 350,000 miles).

Dave Noble

Recently booked London to Sydney on QR - 85k points plus taxes - there is no change in cost on partner airlines

armus

I think there’s a fallacy in expecting to find a good deal on the day you’re searching—it’s like walking into a store and expecting they’re coincidentally put the item you wanted on sale. People can list examples now but prices change frequently and significantly so the examples people list will be meaningless days or even hours from now. It’s more fruitful to have a date range in mind (in the far future), along with a few locations, and repeat the search every few days or weeks until something good turns up (like waiting for a store to have a sale). Some locations can be 400K in one search and 60K the next time you search.

AA’s website is bad about helping to find good options. If you restrict the search filter to business/first or AA then it’ll typically remove too many options (eg many business or first AA flights can get inappropriately filtered out). I try not to use and filters on the initial search step and only do the filtering in the calendar view. When you look at a given day and sort by cost it seems like the website puts the longest duration options first and partner options last. So, if I’m looking at a day then I sort by cost to see how cheap it gets, then sort by time duration and see how far I have to scroll down to find a cheap option (this helps to find options that might only be slightly more expensive than the cheapest but is a much better option).

For a round-trip search each direction separately, and then once you’re found ideal outbound and inbound options try a round-trip search for those days to see if the cost goes down. For a trip to Europe it’s not uncommon for a 85K one-way to cost only 60K when booked as a round trip (domestic trips and partner flights typically don’t get a RT reduced cost).

Some folks like to just book a cheap crappy option and then wait on the eventual schedule change to request/demand a better set of flights. I’ve done this in the past but for me AA has been extremely uncooperative anytime I’ve tried this in the past year or 2.

dogcanyon

Although examples listed may not be available at the same mileage hours from now, I don't see posting them as 'meaningless'. Just knowing that they exist at all can be valuable information for travelers like me who have the time off and flexibility to search and wait for the same rate to occur again.

CMTinPHL

I normally get value out of my AA miles by booking J or F on JL; periodically I can find good value on AA for transatlantic awards. For instance, for a last minute emergency, I literally just booked PHL-ZUR-LHR r/t in J for 115k miles - leaving tonight. It was 227k direct PHL-LHR. While this is an emergency, a stop in Zurich does not add too much time to the trip. In fact, on the return I get 20 hours in Zurich to explore. Ticket price was > $3700 in Main Cabin. I consider that value. May not rival JL F value, but it saved me $3700 I would have otherwise had to pay.

TheDudeAbides

I'm finding exceptional value for domestic (non-A321T) Y. I'm frequently redeeming East Coast - Bay Area (and v/v) for 6 - 10k 1-way. Not too exciting, but at a value of 1.5¢/mile, 6k for ~2500 miles of domestic Y flying isn't too bad, and upgrades have been OK now that award travel isn't at the bottom of the list. ~250k LPs still usually has me at or near the top of the list. The price differential for domestic Y vs domestic J seems crazy to me; e.g. CLT-SFO in Y is often 10k or so, while it is usually 100k in J. If J were 30k, I'd redeem for it, but instead, I go for the 10k in Y + ~65% chance of the upgrade.

aisleorwindow

I just got 2 one-way SEA-ORD seats in April in economy for 6K miles each. Thought that was pretty good value.

socalterp

Got 3 F to SYD for this summer.
I think about 90K per person on the outbound, a bit more on the return, 130K or so.
Overall think it was a great value for what is out there these days. It’s on AA, but only 10K per person more than biz.

hurnik

I usually only fly First Class, plus I live in ALB so it's not the main hub (but all the majors fly here). Found two one-way F tickets to GJT (another hot bed of tourism to fly to/from) for 16.5k each way. MUCH better than the 158,000 miles UA wanted (each way) when I had looked back then. This december GJT-PVR round grip is only 30k coach or 75k First class. The cash pricing is $1,300 for the coach ticket, so I find that to be a very good value (out of GJT there's only AA or UA).

Had also found a 60k (?) redemption for SJD-ALB in First for this coming June (again way better than UA or DL). But I did manage to find a DL BOS-SJD on Delta One for 50k/ticket I believe.

Herb687

Domestic F. Generally close to departure date.

beachfan

Book crap 2 connection overnight flights and wait for a schedule change. I don’t take the original crap booked flights.

ericcheung

Married segment with 6+ hour layovers work well. Works well for a dfw connection for a short overnight in a hotel vs trying to sleep on a red eye. I had booked my family of four on a transcon through Austin in J for roughly 25k miles each, each way. All these got re-booked with reasonable connections when AA rethought their Austin strategy.

jamiel

Best one recently was a oneway FLG-DFW-MIA (Flagstaff, AZ) on Christmas day in F for 19k.

kodalip

Book domestic Y at schedule open with a crappy schedule for very cheap and wait for schedule change 3-4 months out. I'm in school so I know my schedule way ahead of time and I can fly transcon Y for 8-10k points OW on what is otherwise easily a 200-300 OW ticket even with sufficient advance purchase (and sometimes even more). And the schedule change window leaves time to book a cash flight if needed. Also great for tickets I want easy refundability on. Last minute Y tickets can also be a great value.