The general advice you'll find here is to book with miles and points as far in advance as possible, as saver award space goes quickly on many routes. As aBroadAbroad mentioned AA's distance based award just went away, so you'll need to book your trips in segments or possibly a round the world ticket (not sure if that went away as well) Start looking for award space on flights now. I'd try to get it booked asap and if you're open to purchasing flights, you may be able to piece together a fairly cheap itinerary. Hotels shouldn't be too bad, check out IHG's pointbreaks!

Check Starwood's transfer partners and you may be able to get more flexibility out of your award flights by mixing up alliances/partners. Good Luck!