I've said it before and I'll chime in again: with rare exception, I only redeem miles for long-haul premium class trips (usually in F, sometimes in J). There reasons for this are purely numerical. As an example, the trip I'm on right now (old AA CX140A award) YVR-HKG-AKL-HKG-YVR is a bit less than US$20,000.00 in cash. I earned the miles at around $0.02. Do the math; it's really an excellent value.