So, I've been reading all those bloggers who claim that Avios is the so good, because it can be used for short distance domestic flights on AA.

I tried booking Avios on AA flights, but I always end up with ~25k miles for a domestic trip. I am not living in an AA hub, so I always have to take a connection via a hub, and that makes a round trip equivalent to 4 short-haul segments.

Is this normal? Is there anyway to optimize my search such that I can use 10-15k miles for short haul trips?