Originally Posted by sdsearch

Ouch! Doesn't everyone want to go to that event?

In other words, sort of like London for the Olympics, don't necessarily count on much in the way of "saver" awards bieng available (because any fleeting award inventory that does become availabile will be snatched up instantly by other people who aren't trying to coordinate half a dozen guys and just grab one or two seats as they appear).

You may thus find that only"anytime" awards (double the miles) will get you there. But to even have that option, you have to be colecting miles with a US-based airline that flies its own planes to there (since you can only use "anytime" miles on the airline's own planes, not on partner flights, not on codeshare flights).

(It tends to be hard enough to get 6 awards to one place even when there's no high-profile event going on there. HIgh-profile events make award travel much more difficult even for people traveling by themselves or as a couple.)