As noted in #2, awards are one way. The problem is what do you do if you take ticket the outbound, and there are no milesaver awards for the return. It most cases, AFAIK, one way TATL fares are a bit more expensive than 1/2 of the roundtrip fares. Unfortunately, AA doesn't give you the 1/2 of the roundtrip fare, if 1/2 of the trip is on an award. That would be great.