AA is one of the best if not the best as far as being able to use for big international awards etc. If you are trying for Christmas or Thansgiving that always can be an issue with a straight miles ticket. I have Delta also and they are tough to get a good value for tickets. I dont know how they are now but Continental was never good for me either.

Robert

I personally like to have options, so I would consider at least 2 programs - I know you mentioned you're sick of AAdvantage but from my experience, if you find the availability, the rates are usually lower (or the same at best) than MileagePlus. With that being said, availability could be an issue sometimes.

MileagePlus, on the other hand, usually has better availability and you can get some creative routings ticketed that you won't be able to get away with elsewhere. The much bigger Star Alliance network also gives you a lot of options.

In my opinion, any program that offers you one-way rewards is worthy of consideration. Both AAdvantage and MileagePlus have that. The rest try to make it very difficult for you to redeem those highly sought after miles.

As others have suggested, you can go ahead and sign up for credit cards that allow you to transfer to multiple partner airlines. I have used my SPG points for that purpose. Obviously, there are other choices. Good Luck!

Not (entirely) true. Try find QF F award seats anything but at T-331

I suggest you also try Alaska Airlines.

I don't know what the OP is talking about. I've never had issues finding saver space on almost any flight I need, other than holidays. I think American has by far the best availability (maybe Alaska too).

Delta and United will definitely screw you with very little low-level space. When are you going to Florida? I just checked Oct and I see many, many, many non-stops at 12.5k each way.

I would say UA has a little better availability, especially when factoring US air for redemption partner, but I can't complain much about AA, though being based in MIA might help with award availability, so far so good. Might take switching dates a tad but not too bad.

In the US, I think AA and UA are both very good.

You can use Avios and get them ~350 days out, but you'll pay out the YKW since Australia is far far away...

Obviously, AA having lower prices is a points for AA... one would think. But also, yes, OW and even *A have too few options to South America. LAN just does not cover it all.

Doing a deal to PEK from IND, and FC one way works best and UA on the return,

Even got 2 FC on the outbound. AA was tight on the return, and UA open..4 months out. booking.

For me the key to finding good award availability is flexibility. I maintain balances in AA, US, UA and DL because I never know which will has the best availability for my particular trip. Next month's trip is with US miles, my last trip was with UA miles, my previous two trips were with AA miles. I even made a good redemption with DL miles in 2011.
And I never book anything more than 2 months in advance, because my life is too fluid and changeable. Obviously everyone's situation is different, but having flexibility is almost always a good thing.

I love Southwest awards because there is always availability at a fixed rate, so your points are always worth quite a bit. Also, since there are no change fees you save a lot when you do have to change dates. I agree it is not for everyone, but good as an option for domestic. I have found the smaller
Delta and US Air planes to be a much worse coach experience that Southwest, since Southwest does not have any CRJ's as far as I know.

But if flying out of NYC, AA is far better than UA as I also hate trying to fly out of Newark, NJ.
I dislike Delta as I've NEVER been able to book using lowest tier miles.

My experience here in 2013 (well, based on a bunch of 2012 redemptions for 2012 and 2013 travel). All of this is of course anecdotal since each of us just books a few awards a year and all programs have their strengths and weaknesses.

- Seems like AA has tightened up in the past year overall. United right now feels much looser overall. I've made 3 different international award bookings for UA seats - 2 using UA miles and 1 using US miles - within 2 weeks of departure. My guess is that UA would show better results on your search simply because they'll display all of their flights plus US flights online. Yeah, you'll probably need to go to Newark. Do you want the award seat or not?

- The 330 day advice is probably still worthwhile if you're trying to snag a max-peak season trip or a highly in-demand premium cabin. But it's completely not necessary on a mundane domestic U.S. flight. In fact, you may want to wait and price that NYC-Florida itin: it might be better to just buy it and save the miles.

- To go further, sometimes the *best* time to book award seats is within a few days of departure. Doesn't really help you for a trip you want to book a year in advance, but this is where holding a high enough elite status to minimize or eliminate award booking fees can be very helpful. Book a tolerable itin as soon as you find it: they keep looking for the "perfect" itin all the way up till the time of the trip.

- Long-range, I'll probably continue to participate in UA as my primary U.S. airline on which to accrue miles. Biggest total network, one-way awards allowed, more options going both east and west (for me). AA would be my 2nd choice. I'm kind of assuming that US and AA will merge into the AA brand and alliance. DL would be my last choice; the R/T requirement is unnecessarily suffocating and simply makes it too hard to find a whole award at one time.

Perhaps some of the booking experts here can help:
What are the preferred / available travel dates? How flexible?
Origin options - NYC - JFK? LGA? EWR?
Destination options?
Are you willing to make a stop along the way?