We've been getting bad news in the miles world lately, so let me state unequivocally: miles still offer unmatched value to travel the world more, better, and cheaper.

Here's a round-the-world (RTW) trip you can take with miles that took me me about 10 minutes to find the award space for.

There's nothing particularly important about the cities or even the regions where this trip stops. It just shows an easy RTW award using one way awards.

We've been getting bad news in the miles world lately, so let me state unequivocally: miles still offer unmatched value to travel the world more, better, and cheaper.

Here's a round-the-world (RTW) trip you can take with miles that took me me about 10 minutes to find the award space for.

There's nothing particularly important about the cities or even the regions where this trip stops. It just shows an easy RTW award using one way awards.

Booking First Class or Business to Australia can be extremely challenging.

United doesn't release Business Class Saver space on its 787-9 from Los Angeles to Melbourne and doesn't have First Class on the flight.
United does release some First and Business Class on its 777s from Los Angeles and San Francisco to Sydney. It has released none for November or December 2015.
Air Canada (bookable with United miles) releases some Business Class on its 777 from Vancouver to Sydney. It has released one day in December 2015.

December 31, 2014 is the last day to book a free stopover on a roundtrip Delta award. That means it is the last day to book a free one way on a Delta award.

January 1, 2015, stopovers will be eliminated on Delta awards. Free one ways require a stopover at your home airport, which means that free one ways will be eliminated.

Delta had already released its 2015 award chart for travel beginning in the United States (exlcuding Hawaii) and Canada, and now Delta has released SkyMiles Award Charts for 2015 from all other parts of the world.

The current award chart controls for awards BOOKED in 2014, and the 2015 chart for awards BOOKED in 2015, regardless of when the flights are flown.

In addition to new award charts, we will see two major rule changes on Delta awards for awards booked January 1, 2015 or later:

Delta will allow one way awards for half the price of roundtrips
Delta will

As widely predicted, Delta is eliminating stopovers on its awards starting January 1, 2015. Its SkyMiles program rules page says as much.

This is a bummer, but the good news is that one way awards will be bookable with Delta miles starting January 1, 2015, and Delta has already improved its online search.

American eliminated stopovers on awards this year, and the US Airways program will cease to exist in quarter 2 of 2015, which means United will be the only American program that allows stopovers very soon.

An actual improvement to delta.com!

Previously, you could search award space one month at a time with a calendar on delta.com, but that calendar only took into account award space on Delta flights. Because much of the Saver award space available to people with Delta miles is available on partner airlines, that meant that in practice, you really had to search delta.com one day at a time to get the full picture.