Making the most of airline miles

In many conversations with friends about the trip's logistics, we were asked if we booked Around-the-World tickets for the flights. It would seems to make sense given the route of our trip, but no, we did not, and I've been wondering why anyone would want to do that.

While the idea of one fixed-price ticket to travel one-way around the world sounds great, there are some many downsides to Around-the-World tickets:

• You are limited to one airline network: the three main airline alliances that offer then are Star Alliance, SkyTeam, and OneWorld. Star Alliance probably has the most extensive network, but still, you're probably limited on where you can fly (on our trip, for example, they would not have had any domestic flights in Argentina). Plus, some smaller airlines that serve regional markets are not part of airline alliances, so these trips would have to be purchased in addition to your Around-the World ticket (for example, our flights to Lukla in Nepal). 
• You have to go in one direction around the world: this is harder than you think, especially if you're also going North and South (hitting South America or Africa?). Instead of optimizing for longitude, we optimized for distance flown and weather :)
• Finding availability on the flights you want may be difficult: want to go from NYC to Paris on your first leg on Delta or AirFrance? You mostly certainly will not find availability unless you book well in advance, defeating the purpose of flexible booking with Around-the-World tickets. You may end up spending a ton of time figuring out which routes you can actually fly. Plus, it's hard to do a lot of that research online, which means spending a lot of time on the phone with booking agents - particularly difficult if you're on the road. 
• Plus, it's not all that cheap! Tickets start at ~$2000, but prices quickly go up once you add mileage and stopovers. 

There are upsides, too, to around-the-world ticket. Booking is fairly flexible, so you don't have to plan your route way ahead of time; it can be a great deal if you're going to some expensive destinations; and you earn a bunch of miles on one airline. Since we didn't use them, though, let's not dwell on these points too much.

The real deal in airline travel, we thought, was using airline miles for some long-haul flights and taking advantage of award tickets' outdated systems and loopholes. Delta, for example, allows one stopover, one layover, and one open jaw on each award ticket. So we booked a round-trip ticket with the first leg from NYC to Nice, and the return leg from Sydney (open jaw) to Buenos Aires (with a 2-week stopover) and through Miami (24 hour layover) to NYC. All these flight cost 80,000 miles per person. By comparison, the Sydney to Buenos Aires flight alone would have cost over $1,000 if we paid for it. There are some truly amazing deals out there if you look hard enough.

Then, we found some really good deals on shorter-haul flights, by purchasing most tickets well ahead of time, using miles for the most expensive routes, and flying a couple of low-cost airlines where necessary. I bought most tickets before we left for the trip. Used AA miles for the Quantas flight from Cairns to Ayers Rock (10,000 miles for a $600 flight) and Delta miles for flights between Buenos Aires and El Calafate (25,000 miles for 2 flights around $300 each). Overall, we did pretty well:

It's a steal considering we never had to take a detour, make unnecessary layovers, or fly many low-cost airlines. Also, we opted to fly whenever it made sense, instead of taking long-distance buses and trains, or driving excessive distances.