Not sure if this is new to the community, but the removal of award fees opens up a loophole that was really only available to 1Ks/GS.
You know how UA raised the cost of *A award bookings and changed their close in booking fee from $ to essentially a mileage surcharge? Well the way I’ve found to avoid both of those is to book a multi-city itinerary. The first flight will price out as you’d expect with extra cost, but the second flight will be old award chart pricing. Book the itinerary then cancel the first flight. Easy peasy.
It used to be this maneuver would cost a change/cancel fee for platinum and below, but I guess not anymore.