Re: OP. I do the earning on leisure trips on my own dime, always on a coach fare code. Usually it's by bottom fishing spot-special or hub-attack fares (DL/NW sometimes take aim at CLT for those). Sometimes a real "gift" comes along in the form on a mistake fare that also earns usable miles. Thanks to the economy lately even the WN/FL-match fares can look pricey, and my flying on DL/NW has dropped a bit. Free upgrades are never objected to.

Burning is for leisure trips, also in the back. SE Asia is a favorite target, and it's important to maximize value with stopovers, open jaws and things like that. HNL as a stopover for Asia trips is nice, for example. Domestically a favorite target is Alaska in September at 25K RT.

The high-water mark had to be a 60-day summer 2006 odyssey with Australia (CNS), New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Fiji and Samoa grafted onto a SE Asia trip with MNL-GUM-CNS on CO a key connecting link. Took 7 total tickets, 4 of them as awards, and 125K miles.