These are all interesting points. And I've considered them in my planning over the years, esp the UA Excursionist perk for RT international (and of course NF only allows RT awards on partners anyway). Mainly I am curious how others perceive flexibility or quantity/bulk, if that makes sense. My point hoarder impulse to have high balances in one place as opposed to slightly lower ones all around was challenged on this last trip planning. I'd just never really thought about it before.

For my upcoming trip, the fees were higher with UA b/c of the fees imposed by their partner airlines that I'd need to travel on. But I do know that sometimes RT can significantly lower fees (which is of course true even on revenue tix). DL /Skyteam didn't seem to have availability (admittedly I am doing this late in the year for July 2019). All in, I'm at ~$45/ticket for a Europe trip this summer (60k points each)

Psychologically, it was hard for me to use 300k UR points for some reason! Not sure why it was easier for me to split the cost/points between two programs but for some reason it was. I suppose each award/trip must be considered independently, but then one trip taken/points used may affect one's point options for next trip.