Sure, some rewards seem to be less of a value than others. But, consider the following:
- EWR-ANC for 45,000 in First (prob 10+ hours with a cxn)
- EWR-GIG for 70,000 in BF (10 hrs)
EWR-HNL is a pretty good deal IMO for 75K in First. Not as good as when it was 60k miles, but not bad.
You just gotta know where to get the most value from your miles.
along the same lines, an economy ticket to sydney (also with 1 stopover) is 80,000 miles. so you are essentially paying 25,000 additional miles to "upgrade" roundtrip from economy to business on all segments). if i wanted to upgrade on co metal from ewr to, say, ord, that would cost me 30,000 additional miles (assuming i was either elite or purchased an expensive fare).
Let's compare apples to apples. The difference between the coach and first rewards on your EWR-ORD routing is only 20k miles...not 30.
I probably wouldn't spend 100k miles on an EWR-Europe reward since it's not that great of a deal. If I lived in LAX, however, you better believe I would. It's just like I wouldn't pay 45K miles to go IAH-MSY in F, but I'd be happy to pay that much to go IAH-ANC.