Yeah, European redemptions rarely make sense - especially on well served 'trunk' routes like this. If you have to book a ticket at last minute, the redemption would probably not be available anyway.
About the only time I nearly booked a redemption in Europe was when flying somewhere off the beaten track, where a connection was absolutely necessary and there is no dumping of ultra-cheap fares. In my case it was with SAS to Northern Norway (Athens-Tromso).
Ironically, another semi-sweet spot can be ultra-short flights. My local airport (PAS) has only a 0.30 tax, so it's often possible to save 70 or 80 Euro on the short flight to ATH for around 7000 miles. Still pretty bad value imo, but still 4x better than the example above. The sweet-spot on A3/OA seems to be when the fares have hit V class. Redemptions are still available but the fares are beginning to get quite high.
Last edited by Knobbgb; Oct 2, 2019 at 11:54 pm