Originally Posted by
Kiwi Flyer
In my experience *A is much better for awards between NZ/Oz and Europe than OW, especially in premium cabins, and with lots of routing options. That said, M&M awards are not cheap (in general AA awards require a fraction of the number of miles).
Ah, yes, from Europe. You probably mean the short way around.
AA makes redemption from the US to NZ/OZ much easier through
non-OW redemption partners like Air Pacific and Air Tahiti Nui. But that's the "long way around" from Europe so I don't know that it helps much from there.