Waitlisted last month and they didn't take the points until the upgrade cleared, which was within one week of requesting to be waitlisted.

The biggest gripe for me would be the standardization of awards at a single price point for Asia and elsewhere. 25k points will get me from TPE to MNL (1.5 hours) or to CGK (5 hours). Same for rest of world; 70k to BNE or CDG.

However on the flip side, last year I used SQ miles to book TPE-SIN-AKL for 90k (no saver available). It wasn't until after I booked that I looked at a Star Alliance partner award on BR and it was available at 77.5k. So I guess there's sweet spots and not so sweet spots.