MilesBuzz! - Help me maximize my FF use for trips to Germany & China

My husband and I have enough FF miles each on NW/DL & AA to be able to fly internationally in J. We have a 2010 trip to Germany planned, and a future, yet-to-be scheduled trip to China (during which we would like to be able to stop over or side trip into Taiwan for a weekend).

While it may come down to what's available, I am wondering which miles FTers think I should use for which trip. Part of me thinks I should burn the NW/DL miles now for the Germany trip, given the 3-tier award chart they are messing with, and who knows what they'll be worth in the future. The other part of me thinks they would be more valuable for the trip to Asia, as they still allow a free international stopover (and AA does not). I have no idea which one has better routing or availability to either destination.

What do you think?

I don't have any experience redeeming with these programs, but often it will turn out that availability governs your choice.

Aside from that, you might choose based on which carrier is best. With NW/DL, you have the option of NW, DL, Korean, or China Southern over the Pacific, whereas with AA you might be able to redeem on Cathy Pacific, for example. You didn't say what class of service you were booking in, but you might research the options on the available airlines to help you choose. For example, I would assume that you would want to avoid U.S. airlines at all costs if you are flying economy, so you might want to start searching for partner availability within the two programs. As you say, this choice also affects routings -- you can decide whether a more direct or non-stop is very valuable to you, and use that as a basis of choosing.

I would focus on the China trip first, since it's so much longer and carries fewer options. All of the U.S. carriers fly to Germany non-stop, so you should have more flexibility going there with whatever miles you have left.

Thanks for the input. We are looking at J awards for both trips.

To clarify, we would not be able to look at the availability for both trips at once, because they will be happening in entirely different years, possibly a couple years apart. The Germany trip is in 2010, and the China trip is, perhaps, 2012.