Since I'm at 200k EQM's on AA this year with my Sept 1st flight (BKK-NRT-LAX) the rest of the year is in awards-CX & JL business class.

I have used standard coach awards to help teachers get to the schools in China that I hired for, as many times the one way fares were too high, often more than RT's.

And, I use my UA and sometimes AA miles for intra Asia segments where the fare or sched is not good on rev tickets, or I'm just not in the mood for an AirAsia experience.

I have yet to book anything other than a Saver-type award. I find it helps to have miles spread throughout multiple programs, so I'm usually able to find availability somewhere. Of course, it helps to be flexible. If my plans aren't, then that's usually a ticket I'll buy rather than redeem miles for.

I haven't booked anytime/standard rewards per se, but I've booked domestic first class awards when coach saver wasn't available and domestic first class saver was available and was about the same number of miles as coach anytime/standard. I would've booked saver had they been available, so I booked the anytime/standard cost but I got a bit more from it by getting a seat up front for it.

It was mostly on winter holiday schedules, looking 10 to 11 months in advance (ie, soon after schedule opening), that I saw no coach saver, but both coach anytime/standard and first class saver (on certain domestic routes).

This ... until this month. Had to book a 1 way CUN-TUL with a tight time constraint. $550 vs 37.5K on AA. I have a ton of AA, so 37.5K it was. :(

If you're in United Express territory and don't have status and such, it's frequently really slim pickings for saver award seats on the Barbie jets. I'd redeem for standard in an 'in case of emergency, break glass' scenario, but for anything other than continental USA travel, it makes more sense to do a paid flight into Houston and begin award travel there, rather than having something the crosses oceans reprice to standard because of the United Express leg.

If they're anything like other regional jet operations, I would expect United Express to not have the most reliable on-time schedule. So thus be very careful about how much extra time you allow for connecting between the separate-paid-in-cash United Express flight and the award travel flight you're connecting to. You don't get "protected" on an award flight booked separately if your connecting cash flight was late.

So another thing you may to consider is whether straight-through awards are available from another airport within reasonable driving distance. I and several people I know think nothing of flying to/from Nashville and driving 2ish hours to/from Huntsville rather than connecting on Barbie jets to Huntsville (even if awards aren't involved, if a nonstop is available to/from Nashville airport but less-reliable connections are required to/from Huntsville airport). Obviously, though, not every place in the country has a bigger airport just 2 or 3 hours away by car.

Nearest mainline United is probably New Orleans, which is 4+ hours home to airport. And if I was going to Japan, the spousal unit would probably prefer to overnight in Houston going there or back so we're talking a pretty big gap between paid and award tickets.

For transatlantic, Delta actually had good economy availability for many destinations at the 60-70K level with a departure 15-20 minutes from my house so best to use them that way rather than driving six hours or Tampa or Orlando for a saver *Alliance flight across the sea. (Yes, I live in a bizarre place where the Sky Peso is usually higher value than a United mile.)

That truly is bizarro world!!! :D


...Although I've actually had a couple decent Skypeso redemptions out of MCI. Base level awards to EYW and BZE...both 2.3-2.5cpm.

To me it all comes down to 2 different value propositions, ignoring the primary motivator of how badly I really want to go in the first place. 1 - what is the cost in cash vs the cost in award currency and 2 - If cash is better value, can I still afford to go?

I do it all the time. Probably redeem 500k+ miles an year. Status gets me refundability on the tickets so I fly enough to just get that option.