Hey. First post. My wife and I are looking to go to either AUK or PPT vis RDU or CLT with a direct to LAX. She is PM on DL. Ideally, we leave around Dec 13 and return Dec 26. We are deciding if paying out of pocket vs points makes more sense. She is PM currently and should hit 60K miles this year without this trip. She currently has 400K miles available. I've got a number of questions. She has a delta amex plat.

1. Is it worth paying for the flight if it means she will hit PM rather than GM? It seems like flights run around $2000.

2. How do I search expertflyer intelligently? I am looking for the availability of the lowest mileage economy fares (we get free upgrade to economy comfort becauase of her PM)? Specifically, what fare class for either Air France (code share with Delta) or Delta do I need to find?

3. I get that I look for individual legs of the flight separately but without knowing the proper fare classes, I am getting bogged down in the details.

4. are there any 100K roundtrip options available in that time period? I am finding it difficult to search the AF legs despite signing up for an AF account so that I can search that website.

Thanks in advance. I'm happy to provide more details if that helps.