One thing to keep in mind is the idea of adding free one-way stopovers to and from your destination. I couldn't do this on our outbound journey since we booked our award tickets only 2 weeks before we left for Tahiti (just coach for us...last minute plan to burn HH points) and the US point of departure is LAX so you would only get free one-way flights from LAX to XXX. If you live near LAX or can easily pre position there, it's not a bad way to get some extra free flights.

For instance, I was able to add LAX-LIH. We live in Vegas, but a quick Southwest flight from LAS-LAX and we can connect up to our "free" one-way to LIH. Then just need to pay or book a one-way return award.

I used AA miles (had too many burning a hole in my account) but I agree that MR would be a better transfer (either to AF or DL).

If you're ok flying TN Business, then AA and DL (booking on TN) may allow some free one-ways. I know you can do it on AA because I just did but you might be able to do it with DL too.

Check out these MileValue posts:
http://milevalue.com/master-thread-f...rlines-awards/

http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/t/0/_/f...-delta-awards/

Also I wish we had had more time (both off from work and before our departure date) because I may have tried to follow Ben's idea here to use DL miles to get to Tahiti and Australia...if you're booking 11 months out and have the time this may be something to consider (and a surprisingly good use of DL miles although perhaps only in economy): http://boardingarea.com/blogs/onemil...-award-ticket/

Finally, being 6'4" (although only about 190 pounds), I just did the trip in TN in economy both ways. On the outbound I was able to ask at the airport for them to put me in the exit row. The seat armrests don't go up (girlfriend was a little annoyed) but I had ample leg room. The meals were actually relatively decent (better than most domestic first class meals nowadays sadly). And for the daytime flight, we just watched movies. I will agree that the seat cushions in economy are not the greatest but if you sit on a pillow or extra blanket you are ok. It does get somewhat cold by the exit row so although you're heading to FP I would suggest wearing pants and a long sleeve shirt and bringing a sweater on board (they do give blankets but I didn't think it was enough). If you've flown on a long transcon in an exit row on one of the old legacy planes you probably know how the butt can get sore.

On the return flight (red-eye), it certainly would have been nice to have a bed, however, on our flight (which I think was a tuesday or wednesday...i.e. mid-week), the flight was only about half full. Some people got an entire row of 4 economy seats across to sleep in. Others got 3 full seats and many got at least 2 seats to themselves. So again, if you can fly mid-week on the red-eye in the off-season you can probably get a more than 1 seat to yourself which makes it more bearable in coach. We unfortunately choose two seats on the window because we thought the plane would be full and wanted to ensure we sat next to each other and figured it was more private against the window but in hindsight we should've asked how full the plane was and if we could've gotten a row all to ourselves.

Truthfully, having never flown AF F, it seems like a lot of miles to spend 125,000 (at least that's what I believe it was for AA for Biz) for an 8 hour flight on sub-par first or business class products but I guess if you don't have any other plan for the miles it's worth it.

Certainly, I think saving up 25k more AA miles and spending 150k AA miles on say a long transpac flight on Cathay or even to Europe or south america would be a better use.

But you could also go to australia for 155k AA miles as pointed out in Ben's post above.