Unfortunately I have not made my reward flights choices very smartly so far, or have been screwed by the airlines... I have never been able to fly just for 25K miles (US RT) yet. Once, I had to book a Continental RT Aug-Dec (over 30 days, expensive). I was told that since my first leg was coming up soon (~2 weeks), they could only find an unrestricted 50K reward ticket for me, so I ended up wasting 25+12.5K=37.5K miles (some of which I had to purchase from Continental). This winter, I expected to use my 25K on American for a free flight around Xmass time (I could only find such ticket for over $400, so I figured it's a good value.) Well, as I found out the hard way, 10 days in advance is not good enough for a free American reward ticket, unless the reward was claimed a while ago; otherwise, to debit the miles from my account on shorter than 14 day notice, they charged $50... and so on.
This summer I'm planning to go to Europe, high season, on 50K United. What's the least advance time for booking I can allow myself?
Also - Tango, do normal (50K) award tickets to Europe allow stopovers? What about on the partners? (say, Lufthansa for United miles).
Thanks.

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