Suggestions for more efficient searching?
 

We travel only on school breaks and holidays, so with most trips, I know WHEN we are going, but I don't know WHERE.
With 4 people, availability of awards in J and F frequently dictates our destination. As we travel frequently, we don't really have "dream" destinations, and are very flexible in our travel interests.
However, it's very time-consuming to be searching multiple destinations on multiple alliances. I have expert flyer and awardnexus, but it's still a pain to go through a long list every time.

I wonder if there are shortcuts I could use. For example, I know that for one world in Asia, I need to get to DOH or HKG to get anywhere else...and so if there is no availability from NYC on my inflexible dates, I am not going there (never seen 4 J availabily on JAL). If I can get to those hubs, there is frequently onward availability to other places.
That helps narrow it down.

What would be convenient shortcuts for various destinations and alliances?
What would one search for *A, for instance, to Asia, Europe, or S.America? and same for OW and Sky?

Thanks!