Originally Posted by
Productivity
It's you. For 240k UA points (transferable from your UR), you can get two round trip business class seats from North America to Europe.
Yes you have to do searching and work what you can with availability and this has certainly been made more difficult over the last few years, but you can still get lots of value if you learn the system and work it.
You have to do a lot of work. If you don't know anything, you have to read for hours to even know where to begin.
There are award services that will help you find and book, and fees are reasonable (well, in the hundreds. Depending on how valuable your time is, and whether you find award searching fun).