I'm starting this thread to discuss strategies people use for mileage runs (as opposed to specific good fares that someone may find)

What do people consider to be a good deal? For consistency (in comparing different options), let's assume that you are gold, and therefore get a 100% elite bonus on RDM

For economy travel, it seems that one can often find transcons for $250RT (SFO-NYC, SFO-BOS). 5000-5500 EQM. So you are looking at 1 EQM & 2 RDM per 5c or so.

For partner premium cabin travel, the best that I've found seems to be Condor, where you can book a business class flight from the US to Frankfurt for $900-$1200 each way (sometimes cheaper if you can find a sale). It earns 2x EQM and 4x RDM (including 100% elite bonus for gold). If your round trip is 11k miles (depends on the city you leave from, of course) you are looking at 22k EQM and 44k RDM for about $2000... 1 EQM and 2 RDM for about 9c. Of course this is on a "discount" carrier, so the business class is not what you would get from a top-end carrier, but it's a 170 degree lie flat with decent food and drinks -- definitely a step up from an economy or premium economy transcon flight (and you are only flying half the actual -- so there is a time savings as well. And you get to visit a cool, different place). It is possible (though difficult if you insist on cheap fares) to turn this around in a night. Fly out Friday evening; land saturday afternoon; spend a night enjoying Frankfurt; one night in a hotel; fly out Sunday afternoon; be back home Sunday night; show up bright eyed and bushy tailed for work on Monday (assuming that you have to deal with such inconveniences as having a job)

These seem like "good" deals to me.. am I missing something? Are there better opportunities out there?