Yes. I may want to try their premium product so I will deliberately make a connection/routing with them to do it.

I took the nonstop EWR-SIN SQ flight once. I don't think that I would willingly do that again. I prefer a connection on a journey that long.

on a 4th call to what turned out to be the right supervisor in customer service, AA WAS finally able to convert my originally booked mile saver flights BOS-AUA back to the non stop for the 35k pp mile award! It took 4 phone calls... 1st csr said to email, I did it thru the AA website. 2 and 3 tried but said no, and the email said to call yet again so I did and got a super on a weekday. He helped. It worked.

For travels with children on such flights, this is key. non stop.

Yes, though, if I were to go to Australia again I would do a stop or stopover.

Glad to hear that you finally got it taken care of in a customer-friendly manner. Enjoy Aruba!

thanks!
yes I thought AA was gracious to help me.
Had begun to wonder what to do about this but this time I got lucky.

Depends on the situation.

I tend to use my miles domestically, so since I've been there, done that with domestic F, I go for the quickest routing for me.

When I use my miles to go overseas next year though, it will be different. First I need to get availability though...

I live near BNA, so I need connections unless I'm going to a hub . . . I take shortest flight time in Y, most convenient flights without stressfully short connection times in J or F.