I've never had difficulty with redemption, and I've scored some amazing awards -- both planning in advance and calling up at the last minute.

One thing that helps is having reasonable balances of miles spread across several programs -- if I can't get an award with United miles, perhaps I can with Delta, or with American...

It also helps a great deal to know partnerships and routes, to recognize the limitations of online award booking engines, but to also know which segments are likely to be the most difficult to find space on and search for available on those and then work backwards (or forwards, or sideways..).

And if you just don't have the patience or the deep knowledge, why not outsource it to AwardPlanner.com?

I find redeeming points on Delta almost impossible out of Atlanta unless I do SkyChoice.

My experiences are similar to those who favor flexibility in terms of dates and airports. I fly out of Orlando -- on the plus side, fares are usually pretty cheap, as we have a cadre of LCCs that serve this area pretty well; on the negative side, using award tickets can be a challenge, because many people want to fly INTO Orlando as a vacation destination. One recommendation, if you are only finding 'choice' level awards, check availability for standard level first class awards. In most cases, those awards are the same level or cheaper than the 'full price' choice awards.

I was just able to book my summer vacation, a baseball watching trip to Southern California in August. We are doing a stopover in PHX on the way, and could have even done an open jaw on the way back (fly into LAX, out of SAN), but didn't need to.

I am going with a buddy, around my birthday time, so we are able to fly F on AA for 90k miles total -- MCO-PHX-LAX-MCO (of course, there are layovers in DFW each way, but that's OK with me). Some folks don't think that is the best use of miles, but for me, I am happy with it, and I got the exact dates that I wanted first try.

Stevekoe

I'll admit it's been awhile since I cashed in for an award ticket, but, the last few times I did, I got exactly what I wanted, when I wanted. It was always AA. I'm now flush with Delta--I won 44,000 Delta Skymiles last year in a contest.