Originally Posted by Happy

Who said you need to redeem your Explorer award with the most unfavorable way?

May be you have no idea on what "Maximizing the value" means? How about a more layman term of "Sweet Spot"?

You say you know about Explorer award ... If you really do, you would realize that it is rather difficult to redeem the lowest level because, guess what, the rule requires you fly 2 oneworld partner airlines other than AA... Try to construct such an itinerary that would be in the 0 to 1500 miles... On top of that, it is the most ineffective way to use Explorer award which should NOT be used when a regular award would suffice.

Furthermore, the Explorer award is not just distance based, it has its own rules which aint anything similar to your regular award as you know it.

But wait, since the proud example of your redemption is a rather ineffective way of using miles, may be indeed "maximization of value" is not in your tool box.

Your example just goes to show that you have the least idea how to use an Explorer award. The Explorer award would be most advantageous when it costs LESS to travel the same distance, AND allow you to visit many places, when multiple regular awards would be needed to do so. Again, your math is wrong because you have no idea what kind of math is actually needed to decide when to use an Explorer award. Of course if you can manufacture miles from the thin air with unlimited supply, that who cares how to use them to get the most out of such? Unfortunately you dont have such ability. So may be learning how to maximize the value of your miles is not too hard a concept to grasp?

Like I said, I should not pick thru someone's feel-good bubble. If you dont want to expand your horizon to learn something new, that is your choice. Hopefully others who read the thread would be able to think further and explore others ideas and suggestions, thus be better off in getting their award trips "worth" more, not just saving a few hundred bucks here and there but for a trip they would otherwise may not take due to affordability.

There are a lot of ways to redeem awards, yours happen to be one of the rather ineffective way. Most of us here cannot manufacture miles at will. So this is a precious resource. Some can make theirs worth like gold, but others may just get the worth of coal... Again, it is an option to each their own. @:-)

No wonder there is an old saying about Ignorance is a Bliss. Indeed.

Here is an Explorer award I had done - started from West Coast or cutting out Japan, you can do it with 130K.

MIA-LAX-AKL-SYD-SIN-KUL-HKG-TPE-ICN-KIX-CTS-NRT-SF0-LAS

Every city was a stopover. Business class all the way except the domestic Japan segments because JL only has First or Coach for the domestic flights and it would not let business class ticket holder sits in first class like the domestic US airlines do.

So if you can do a trip to Australia / NZ with 130K why would you waste the 60K on your PDX/SFO round trip? Unless you are brain dead, or you want to argue for argument sake. I suspect the latter not the former. lol.