Hi,
I am trying to understand the mile runs and the benefits they give you in both miles and status for companies. After looking through quite a few pages of the mile runs I've noticed that most of the domestic under $200 flights have a CPM of about 3 giving 6k miles.
However almost all of the international flights have a CPM of 4.5 for $700-$900 and giving between 15000-20000 miles.
Why are people willing to do the international flights that cost more per mile? Is it strictly because it reduces the number of days they would have to do mile runs for in order to get status?

As well the international mile runs I notices most have multi day layovers.
LAX-IAD-BRU-NBO-BRU-IAD-ORD-LAX for $939 RT ai and 20,584 miles for a 4.6cpm. This is for 11/21-25.
LIS-EWR-IAH-GIG €706.66 19602 mi ~ US$0.046/mi 1 day layover
It seems that layovers are generally discouraged with milerunners so wouldn't that add to the negativity?

Part of why I am asking is if those layovers are generally negatives for people what is the main benefit of them? For me a 2 or 3 day layover would actually be okay in many situations.

Thanks