Here's my somewhat poorly worded incoherent rant.

After being slapped with a big devaluation in early 2015?, UA mile value just seems to get worse and worse. The worst of which is married segments. I'm looking to redeem an award from IAD to Asia, really, anywhere in Asia will do, on premium cabin not on UA, and there's next to nothing! No I don't want to fly on UA 772 or connect in EWR and Pittsburg. Only some NH J (which is very good) show up on scattered dates, tucked waaaaay in the back on page 6 of award availability, and the occasional rare sighting of TK J through IST. Not to mention some time in there UA seem to have sneaked in other devaluations - for example on my PVG-NRT-IAD flight, which was 120K when booked in F originally, now randomly wants to charge 130K when changing dates. And then there are times when flying to SE Asia costs 140K for some reason. I remember the good old days when I could fly to Asia and back in F for 140K plus a stop over / openjaw.... And why is HK considered South Asia when I can fly to parts of China more southern than HK for 10K less?

It seems like now the best use of UA miles is for intra-Asia segments rather than US-Asia on non-UA metal?