Originally Posted by scnzzz

Well, most recently, I was looking for J (x3) SFO-SYD. Theoretically 125k per head (62.5k each way) Nothing within months of the dates I was interested in. Routing through Asia would have made this two awards, I think 55k + 35k per person each way, so 160k RT.

What I found was SFO-HKG-SIN (stop, 8 hours) - SYD (nominally a stopover but actually our destination). Return SYD-PVG-LAX-SFO. 130k miles per person, so within 5k miles of the default RT but far, far better than using two awards. (trip mileage a shade under 25k miles)

Now in this case I'm not using the explorer award for what it's intended to be but it gets me where I need to go for about the same mileage as the regular RT, except that it allows me to get around the very limited availability on QF. And no way was I going to burn that sort of mileage on HA etc. TPAC!

The PVG transit promises to be a pain, but that's another story.