I have 2 accounts with about 50K miles and had a couple of quick questions I was hoping some experts can help with.

1. Is it possible to use these miles to redeem something else other than flights like hotels or gift cards? The YQ on redemptions makes it completely ridiculous to redeem for a "free" ticket.

2. I looked up a United flight from Ord to Sfo as an example and there is no YQ in the fare construction. If I were to try and redeem AI miles for that ticket, would there be no YQ charged since there isn't anything to charge??

Thanks.