I'm not going to cross 2 oceans, but leaving from YVR, I could fly a lot for only 115k miles in J, and I'm happy with my redemption. I wanted to book this before the September deadline, I'm glad I was able to meet the deadline. I originally wanted to travel next month, but I didn't find any J award spaces TATL with low YQ carriers leaving west coast. TK MEX/CUN route's availabilities were good, but it really adds to MPM, poor transfer experience in Mexico, and poor J experience between YVR and MEX/CUN, so it went out of my consideration. I then looked at going thru TPE with BR, but it's over the MPM. Thru PEK may be within MPM, but it's also out, with poor connecting experience at PEK including poor CA lounge, mediocre CA J experience, and not so low YQ.
I happened to find sporadic availability of UA Polaris TLV-SFO in spring, as well as SK J SFO-CPH. While I was tweaking the routing, SK seat was gone the date I wanted to leave, so booked LX J instead.
Link to the map:
Great Circle Mapper
YVR-SFO UA Y 11 hrs layover
SFO-ZRH LX J 77W
ZRH-LJU JP J 15 hrs overnight layover
LJU-TGD JP J stop 1 week
TGD-WAW LO J 22 hrs overnight layover
WAW-LWO LO J stop 2 weeks
LWO-IST TK J 6 hrs overnight layover
IST-BUS TK J destination 1 week
BUS-IST TK J 14 hrs layover
IST-TLV TK J 12 hrs layover
TLV–SFO UA J 77W 13 hrs layover
SFO-YVR AC J
Cost: 115k miles, $434 taxes and fees, booking fee
Why I like my itinerary:
* If I stayed in TLV for more than 24 hours, it would've costed me 165k instead of 115k!
* Wanted to check out Polaris lounge: the closest to me is at SFO
* Nice to have access to Polaris lounge after a 15-hr flight from TLV and being able to take shower and refresh before heading to SF. And it may be even possible to have dinner before heading home?
Remarks:
* united.com showed more flights than aeroplan.com for YVR-SFO and IST-TLV, I couldn't choose the flights I wanted. The rep told me the mismatch between those 2 sites happen about half the time, and I was lucky.
* I picked LX and UA for TATL, and avoided LH, etc, but taxes and fees were higher than I guessed.
* I couldn't see any seats with A3
* I don't find any partners' booking references in my confirmation, so I'm glad that I wrote down.