Just thought I'd share some experience from booking 4x BX7B awards this week.

Initially, I was surprised to find availability with LAX-PEK and HKG-LAX for the transpacific sectors. Of course, married segment availability meant those segments were only available with certain domestic connections, so ATL-LAX-PEK and HKG-LAX-DFW-SAV were the only options where I could secure 4 seats the whole way through. I had initially searched online and put those flights on AAdvantage hold.

Unfortunately Business Extra awards have more rules and restrictions, so those flights didn't work.

Stumbling block #1 - Double open jaw not allowed. (ATL != SAV + PEK != HKG ... one difference is OK, 2 is not)

Stumbling block #2 - Domestic to domestic connections cannot exceed 4 hours. Domestic to/from international connections cannot exceed 12 hours. (This turned out to be a real pain looking for 4 seats.)

Stumbling block #3 - Can't mix classes. I'd have been willing to take a shorter domestic segment in economy, but was told that was only possible if the flight in question was economy only. (Not sure I believe this one, but didn't press it.)

I dealt with 2 Meeting Services agents...and they were great, helping me understand the rules, and patiently helping search availability for the various options I presented. Married segment award availability is ridiculously difficult to search, but we finally found something that would work.

All in all, I can't complain. This was a great result...and much better value than what I had been expecting.