We are writing about "extreme awards" for the next issue of InsideFlyer and would like to hear from anyone who has redeemed miles and points for an over-the-top award or is saving up for an incredible trip or experience. Thanks for your input!

Paging lucky9876coins... the master of the insane TransPac.

Well I'm sure this doesn't even rate in FT terms but ours have been:

1 BA Concorde
2 AF Concorde
2 EK F
4 SQ F

For our family cruise to Alaska in August of 2008 - I managed to book 12 RT. tickets to Seattle (embarkation Port) all from East Coast Airports - I used different Airlines and managed to get Standard Awards and booked similiar scheduales so we will all arrive in Seattle about the same time. Some are booked in First Class -

The route is very favored and hard to get as cruiseships carry 3,000 passengers and sometimes there are 4-6 ships leaving & arriving back in Seattle the same day!

I was on the phone and my husband on the Cell phone exactly 331 days at midnight before ticketing day!!

I also booked our Pre-Cruise Hotel, for 17 of us, using Marriott Pts, but this is not as much of a feat as the Airline tickets.!!

best redemption was Qantas RTW first class for 300k
my routing was sin-lhr-bkk-syd-lax-jfk-lax-akl as you couldnt go back to the same country twice but could backtrack
it was a 70000km cap and I came in at like 59k if I remember rightly
then they cancelled the lax-akl F so they had to re route me lax-syd-akl. so I used that to go akl-scl-eze-syd on lanchile I think that award was about
120k. that was when QFf was good value! and reasonable availability

not anymore

I have a few interesting award routings to share, although I'm not totally sure which direction you want to go with this. I should preface this by saying that I love to fly, which may explain these.

My most extreme award was the "Six Transpacs in Five Days." There was a glitch, I mean special on the UA website that allowed me to book an award from KIX to ICN by means of SFO each way, for a mere 40K miles in First. That meant I flew KIX-SFO-ICN-SFO-KIX, all within the course of a few days. Since I live in TPA I had to buy a revenue ticket to KIX, so it turned out to be six transpacific flights in five days. I really enjoyed the journey!^

A more mild journey I took was to NRT from the US, routing EWR-DUS-ZRH-SIN-NRT, staying in Tokyo three days, and then returning NRT-SIN-ZRH-FRA-EWR. This was primarily to sample the new Singapore Airlines Business Class on the 77W, and was only 90K miles in C. I wrote a trip report on this here.

On another "I love to fly" note, I did an award from JFK-LAX-NRT-SIN-BKK-SIN-BKK-NRT-LAX-JFK on UA/LX/TG/SQ all in F, and stayed in SIN for two days and BKK for one day. It was my first time in SQ F, which was the primary reason I took the trip.

If you are more interested in just regular awards to actually see destinations, I booked an award to New Zealand and Australia last year before United raised their award prices, and spend two weeks in beautiful New Zealand. I also recently flew to China on an award ticket and spent 10 days there.

If you would like anymore info, please contact me.

There was the time I flew award coach (that's extreme right?) in order to make the 14 hour AKL-YVR inaugural flight and continued on to PHX (via LAX on CRJs) for the mod do. The way back was less extreme although I almost misconnected at LAX to the last flight of the day thanks to delays on US Airways PHX-LAX.

Yikes, yes that is extreme!! Oye!

200K SPG point to see my Steelers win SuperBowl XL from 47-yard line, Steelers sideline, 20 rows from the field, seats. 2 nights SPG hotel, night-before NFL party, day-of-game party, rubbing elbows with Rev. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, before an escorted entry bypassing the great unwashed standing in line to get in.

Yes, I could have stayed 25 nights in a Cat4 hotel, but it was worth it.^

http://richs.smugmug.com/Super%20Bowl

The most I've ever spent was for an SQ award F tix roundtrip HKG-SIN-LHR with Aeroplan miles which I have done twice.

45K UA miles for TED award LAX-LAS on UA. My best use of miles ever. Almost as good as redeeming 25K miles for LAX-SNA.

FYI. IMHO it is not in anybody s interest to publish current good deals in using miles.

My wedding and honeymoon trip report was titled "How to Spend 670k Miles on a Single Trip" or something like that...
* 2 first class awards using American miles, LA - Tahiti and Tahiti-Sydney on Air Tahiti Nui + Melbourne - Los Angeles on Qantas
* Overwater Bungalow at Bora Bora Nui for 5 nights + Intercontinental Tahiti, Sheraton Tahiti, Westin Sydney, Intercontinental Sydney, Westin Melbourne, Ritz-Carlton Marina del Rey
* Cash + points (Starwood) rooms for all family traveling to our wedding in Seattle

I just booked 2 F awards using United miles, North America to South Asia via the Atlantic which gets the Lufthansa First Class Terminal in FRA twice and the Thai First Class spa in Bangkok as well.

And I've done several transpacific awards in first, that's an extreme award but also pretty standard....

Very do-able with Star Alliance, do-able with oneworld, almost impossible with Skyteam of course. (Although there are still some hidden value partnerships with DL Skymiles.)

Slightly OT, but glad to know you finally found a date United wasn't "filtering" TG F availability.

150K AA each for the bride and I in Business Class.

TVC-BOS (for son's college graduation), SNN (side trips to Norway, Venice and Brussels on Ryanair ugh), LHR-HKG-SYD-HNL-TVC.

Five week trip and total for airfare and all hotels using points and miles was $2300 plus food and goodies.

Thanks FT

I did a Skyteam RTW in Biz in 2006, spread out over 11 months, 6 continents, 5 Skyteam members and about 52k in flight miles, if I recall correctly. A great use of 220k miles and about $300 in taxes.