Originally Posted by psychtobe
this may be overstating things just a bit.
I too have redeemed standard awards to DTW (twice), Buenos Aires (x2), Mexico (x2), MSY, and DFW - all within a 12 month period using CO, DL, NW, AS, AM - but it often required a lot of flexibility, inconvenient routing (how's 3 legs PDX-ZIH?), and a lot of valuable time and angst to find.
Not with regard to the original post which was based on several misstatements, e.g. you always need 50K miles & NW really doesn't want you to redeem rewards.