Perhaps it's a sign of me getting older and refusing to do recliner red eyes, or the plethora of AS miles available to me but I'm finding myself turning necessary short hops into award mileage runs with the new rules.

I've booked several SAN - SEA - LAX - SFO, SAN - PDX - SFO - LAS, etc. type flights all for 5k miles + TSA security theatre tax when I've needed to be in the bay or vegas for the upcoming year.