Great points Jazzop. I am going to the Frequent Traveler awards next week and instead of buying an $800 ticket JFK-IAH-JFK Thurs-Fri, I used 25,000 "Pesos" and will most likely get upgraded at my 6 days window. Pretty fantastic if you ask me.

As for international awards, they are hard to find, but not impossible. Once you learn the tricks, the system is beatable. It just takes a while to learn how to make Deltamatic say uncle