Based on awards availability we were limited in our stops and absolutely 0 flights available directly. The only other cities included were Munich and Zurich and all layovers were 5+ hours regardless of business or economy availability. I've never been to either of those cities, and having almost 4 full days in Paris, we figured we could spare some time in both of those places to see them or about 5-6 hours and then go take advantage of the airport lounges. Barcelona is small enough that most people say you can see everything in 2 full days and then London is for about 8-9 hours before we would want to get to sleep for our early flight the next morning back. If we had cut out the stops on the way, this would have been nearly triple the points, unfortunately Denver has limited direct connections to Europe which is why we are leaving from JFK.

Why do you feel those are two wasted stops? Those seemed like pretty quick access from the airport, pretty condensed city centers, and both being pretty walkable. Most of my travel experience is limited to North America and the Caribbean, so I wanted to try and pack in a few other stops only seeing a few key things in each city.