Although I'm in the process of burning off my remaining AAdvantage miles, I do think that the program has been worth it. In the past 5 years I've been able to use the miles to book a couple of premium class roundtrips to Asia as well as for several upgrades on other US-NRT flights. Unfortunately, in my instance AA's introduction of the $500 (RT) co-pay for international upgrades and Thai Airways inauguration of its JFK-BKK nonstop flight made AA the much less attractive alternative. But as a last hurrah I'm getting a first class roundtrip trip to Asia out of the miles. I believe the itinerary priced out at around $10,500, so my 135000 mile expenditure is working out to around $.077 per mile. Not a bad return at all.