I absolutely agree. From my experience, the hooplah about no award availability is very exaggerated. I've never had any problems finding ways to redeem my awards, as long as I don't wait until the last minute.

Anyway, to the OP, don't forget to figure in the 500 bonus miles if you book on AA.com, as well as the 325 miles if you buy the ticket with your Citibank card. While that would only bring the CPM down to 1.17, it does tip the decision a little more in the favor of buying the ticket. Gemac's spectrum sounds like a pretty good guideline.

Not to mention that you can maybe figure out some upgrade options if you purchase your ticket, which would be nice from JFK-SJU.

That being said, I think there are also outside circumstances to consider: do you find yourself short of cash at the moment and feel like you should redeem miles to help your cash-flow? Or maybe the other way around, you have alot of cash, so maybe you should buy tickets to help your "mileage"-flow?

One final thing to consider is how much flying you plan on for the rest of the year. Do you worry about winding up a little bit short of requalifying for EXP, etc.? Maybe this is a good time to get about 4,000 miles (or 4 segments) closer to requalifying.