American Express Membership Rewards - Using MR points for International F & RTW (many questions)

I have transfered MR to CO and DL; it's quick and easy, and I understand how those FF programs work for all awards, including Skyteam RTW.

On Star Alliance, things are bit more tricky, but still possible. As I understand, there is no low-friction method to transfer 100,000's of MR to any OneWolrd airline.

1) Does anyone routinely transfer MR to ANA to travel *Alliance (e.g. UA) on domestic US Routes?

2) As a U.S. resident, will I encounter any strange fees or taxes if I transfer MR to ANA or Air Canada and then use them for U.S. travel?

3) The WikiFlyer entry on MR says that MR can be transfered to US Air, but I don't think that's possible anymore. Is that a former MR feature, or am I just blind?

4) Am I correct that OneWorld RTW Awards allow up to 16 segments, whereas "RTW Award" on SkyTeam and Star Alliance only allow 5-6 stops? That is, on SkyTeam and OneWorld the RTW award product is fundamentally different from their respective paid RTW products?

Thanks!

PS: Not sure if I should have posted this to one of the alliance forums instead. I tried searching extensively using Google complex queries for my own answers before posting this! Am I the only one who thinks FT's search engine is hard to use?

RTW award rules depend on which FFP youre redeeming with.

US is a former partner.

you can transfer to mexicana for AA awards.

NH's mileage based star alliance award seems like a great offering to me, especially for RTW.

yes people routinely use AC, NH, SQ for domestic UA/US awards. UA PS J/F LAX/SFO-JFK would be a particularly good redemption.

any questions on oneworld or paid RTW would be better in another forum. such as the alliance forums, or the FFP forums.

if you want skyteam RTW F award youd have to go through AF/KL or perhaps AZ, rather than CO or DL.

try the FT beta search, it seems to work pretty well now.