I've just booked an award ticket to the Olympics in Beijing with AA miles, and earlier this month was in Buenos Aires on miles. I'm pretty happy with the redemption side. One jewel in the AA program is One World awards which are mileage based. I have a trip to Asia/Australia next year with multiple stops in business (25,000 air miles for 150,000 AA miles). Just going to Australia in business from the U.S. would be 125,000 miles, so for 25,000 miles more I get nights in Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, Hobart, and Brisbane.

http://www.aa.com/apps/AAdvantage/Vi...artnersContent

I've used AA miles on Qantas to get to both New Zealand and Australia, but could not get business seats on my last trip in April and ended up in coach. There has been a lot of discussion in the last year about availability of business/first seats on Qantas.