recadna

Its all good and fun to accumalte points until you start looking for award tickets. Unless your schedule is extremely flexible and you are willing to take kids out of school , it is nearly impossible to book any international travel to Asia in Summer and Xmas/NY. I have loads of AA miles and can not find any tickets in the summer even if I want to spend 110k per each.

pinniped

How are you searching? Are you using one of the 3 or 4 popular award search tools to scour all partner airlines?

I've booked lots of AA awards over the years. While I think UA is the real availability leader right now, I don't think getting to Asia in the summer is impossible. Of course those are blunt terms - an entire continent and a 90-day window - your specific city and your specific desired travel date may be more difficult, but with flexibility it can be done.

Just for kicks, I searched SFO-HKG for award seats next week, both Y and J. Across four days, there are 28 possible itineraries on Oneworld at regular award levels, including most of the CX nonstops. If I'm having trouble finding seats at AA.com directly from my hometown to my exact desired destination, I start by looking for the likely backbones of the award and building out from there. So for much of Asia, I'd start with SFO or LAX to NRT or HKG. Then piece together what you need on either end from there.

It can definitely be done. You do not need to book the 2x "rulebuster" awards to do it. Just takes some digging and, in some cases, a phone call to an airline agent to book.

Centurion

With eight people I would be tempted to go with an airline that would allow group ticketing and use points for other trips