I just booked myself a five city, four country award for 15,000 United miles + $73. Let's back up a little bit before I explain my current award.
My 2013 Euro Hopper
Two years ago, I flew a Seven City, Seven Flight, Six Country Award in Europe for 12,500 United miles plus taxes.

When United greatly devalued its award chart in February 2014, it started charging more to fly Business and First Class on its partners than on its own planes.

Right now 40k Starpoints plus taxes will get you a roundtrip economy class trip to Europe, 65k Starpoints will get you a roundtrip Business Class ticket, and 80k will get you a roundtrip First Class ticket.

Starpoints always transfer to dozens of airlines at a rate of 20k Starpoints to 25k miles.

Virgin America no longer collects fuel surcharges on redemptions that fly Virgin Australia.

That means you can fly Virgin Australia's flat bed Business Class from Los Angeles to Sydney or Brisbane for only 80,000 Virgin America points + $130 in taxes roundtrip.

On many routes, Etihad releases tons of Business and First Class award space within one week of departure. You can book this ultra-luxury award space without fuel surcharges with American Airlines miles.

Twitter follower Patrick found four Etihad First Class award seats this week on a flight from Los Angeles to Abu Dhabi and asked whether that was normal.

@OneMileataTime @garyleff @milevalue Has Etihad started releasing more first class space closer to date? See http://t.co/V8oIw8sAAW

— Patrick Srail (@patricksrail) March 8, 2015

The answer is that it depends on the route.

On many routes, Etihad releases tons of Business and First Class award space within one week of departure. You can book this ultra-luxury award space without fuel surcharges with American Airlines miles.

Twitter follower Patrick found four Etihad First Class award seats this week on a flight from Los Angeles to Abu Dhabi and asked whether that was normal.

@OneMileataTime @garyleff @milevalue Has Etihad started releasing more first class space closer to date? See http://t.co/V8oIw8sAAW

— Patrick Srail (@patricksrail) March 8, 2015

The answer is that it depends on the route.

All airlines release award space 11 months out.

I'm not sure where that idea came from.

Delta got rid of its award chart two weeks ago. For awards starting and ending in the United States, I still know what Saver awards cost from memory and from these saved charts.

But now that Delta allows one way award bookings, I'd occasionally like to know the price of awards from Australia to Southeast Asia, Europe to Africa, or the Middle East to India. I don't have those memorized, and I don't have every set of Delta award charts for departures from every region saved anywhere.

There are five Business Class saver award seats and seven economy saver award seats between Los Angeles and Sydney for much of late December.

The space is on the direct Virgin Australia flight and bookable with Delta miles on delta.com. Connecting from anywhere else in the United States and to anywhere else in Australia/New Zealand is possible for zero extra miles, award space permitting.

This is the ideal way to book what should be a very tough ticket: a trip to Australia over Christmas and New Year.

Using miles to book trips instead of using cash has tons of advantages:

Easier access to First Class and flat beds: An international First Class ticket can cost $10k or the amount of miles you can get from opening a pair of credit cards.
Better open jaw and stopover rules: Few revenue tickets allow you to stopover without increasing in price.