Pulled the trigger on an all biz round trip booking from NYC-CAS-LIS for Sept 2018. The return leg has a 21hr layover so we get a taste of Casablanca. No stopovers are allowed on partner awards.

Tried to book last night. The first two agents were positively useless. I even started taking notes as it was so comical. The first flat out said IB Avios could only be used for IB flight and then cut me off - sent to a survey (naturally I gave rave reviews). The 2nd was slightly better, but after 5 minutes she said I that i needed to speak with an Avios specialist and was transferring me; after 10 minutes on permahold, I hung up as I found a note on the web that the award reps work from 8a-midnight their time zone (someplace in Europe).

This morning gave it another go. Found a unicorn. The rep spoke English better than most reps here. Her working knowledge of the system was amazing. She was able to find exactly what I could on Air Maroc's site. She even tried, but could not force a stop over. She waited whilst I transferred Chase UR for the Mrs, and then for me. BTW, Chase transfers are instant, AMEX can take a day or two. Then waited for me to get the two separate e-tickets to confirm all was correct.

A cool side note: this just gets in under the wire at 7986 miles - 8000 is the cutoff for the next award tier.

Overall not the best long term use of IB Avios, but I have a family situation that makes me need to travel sooner than later.