I started regular travel in June of this year and thanks to many domestic flights, my United Plus Explorer card, and quickly working my way through the status levels, I now have just over 200k miles sitting in my account. I am currently at 85K qualifying miles for the year and should hit 1K status in about 3 weeks.

All that being said, I would like to plan a trip for two and really don't know how to get the best value out of my miles. Should I buy tickets and then use the miles to upgrade, should I buy tickets with miles and then use GPAs to upgrade (can I even do that??), or a combination of both? Also, since I only fly domestic I don't know what the best international flights would be to take. I know there is a direct from LAX to SIN on Singapore air and I have heard that is a long flight and supposedly really fun in business class.

Generally, I am looking for advice on some fun places to go internationally and how to best utilize my miles to get there.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!