Originally Posted by
trojanman
1. Never, ever use miles for domestic Y awards. The return on your miles is between 1% - 2% in this case.
2. Minimize usage of miles for domestic J/F awards unless it's 3-class flagship service (762 SFO/LAX-JFK or 777 LAX-MIA). The return on your miles is between 3% - 4% in this case.
3. Horde enough miles to go on a longhaul F award for vacation. This really maxes out the value of your miles, as longhaul F can cost upwards of $6K-$10K per ticket at discounted consolidator prices, and costs you anywhere from 125K - 180K miles. The return on your miles is upwards of 5% - 8% in this case.
I agree with 1 and 2... never ever redeem miles for domestic Y and be careful with domestic F which is not that special on the MD/737/757 flights.
If you can do 3, then it is great... but if you don't accumulate that many miles, international J or international Y can result in relatively decent returns on miles.
Another key point here for miles newbie is that you can always use your miles for upgrades. For example, I purchased 2 Y-tickets on LAX-ORD-FCO last year during peak season. They cost $1,200 each... The J fare would have been around $4,000 each. I ended up upgrading to J one way with 25k miles+$350 which worked out pretty good on the CPM basis.
http://www.aa.com/pubcontent/en_US/d...rade-chart.jsp