Two months ago, thexfactor emailed me to tell me that he'd booked something online at aa.com that was against one of the rules I laid out in The Five Cardinal Rules of American Airlines Awards.

His discovery greatly increases where you can take a free oneway when booking American Airlines awards online.

Or: A Letter to a Friend's Mom

My friend's mom wants to go from Los Angeles to London in early April with her American Airlines miles. This post contains all the information she needs to understand her options.

If you view the specifics of her situation as merely an example, this post should be hugely helpful to you in you want to plan an award to Europe with your American Airlines miles.

Unfortunately, all great trips must come to an end. Three-and-a-half months before the end of my stay in Argentina, it is time to book my oneway return to the US: from Buenos Aires (EZE) to Denver (DEN).

Planning

I need to be in Denver for a wedding at the end of July. Because of this, my travel dates are limited--I want to maximize my time in Argentina while still arriving in Denver before the wedding.

I love stats, so the 2012 AAdvantage stats at the top of the AAdvantage FAQ caught my eye.

For all of 2012, there were 7,426,930 redemptions of American Airlines miles.

Over 700,000 were for "merchandise" including vacations, which I don't consider merchandise. Let's say the vast majority of these redemptions were awful values. Not all non-airfare redemptions are awful--Mommy Points found a good deal for Cubs tickets and experiences with Starpoints--but I rarely see values of even one cent per mile on these types of redemptions.

Over half a million were for upgrades.

I recently booked a family of four an economy award from Miami to Buenos Aires with their Membership Rewards. It was an interesting award that I think demonstrates the complexities and fun of booking with American Express points.

I won't talk about that award specifically, but I'll use it as a jumping off point for discussion since it illustrates a typical Memberhip Rewards situation.

Business ExtrAA is an American Airlines program designed for small businesses to be rewarded for their loyalty to American, and it's a great way for you to double dip your rewards on American flights, earning more free awards faster!

Right now, people who sign up for Business ExtrAA and meet minimum use requirements--more on those below--can earn 5,000 AAdvantage miles and 2,000 Business ExtrAA points.

At our Award Booking Service, we receive numerous requests to get our clients to the Maldives.

American Airlines has introduced a cool new Award Map, which tries to make award booking easier. It seems pretty useless to me. I want to be wrong. Please tell us in the comments how it can be useful.

The Award Map lets you input your home airport and either a destination region or goal. Your options:

You also input the number of passengers, how many miles you have, what cabin you want, whether it's one way or roundtrip, and the dates.

Clicking search will hopefully generate a map of results that meet your criteria.

American Airlines has introduced a cool new Award Map, which tries to make award booking easier. It seems pretty useless to me. I want to be wrong. Please tell us in the comments how it can be useful.

The Award Map lets you input your home airport and either a destination region or goal. Your options:

You also input the number of passengers, how many miles you have, what cabin you want, whether it's one way or roundtrip, and the dates.

Clicking search will hopefully generate a map of results that meet your criteria.

This is the sixth part of a multi-post Anatomy of an Award series about American Airlines Explorer Awards, which are ideal for around-the-world trips, trips with multiple destinations, and other “trick” itineraries. The first five parts dealt with a round-the-world example. To understand Explorer Awards, see The Rules.

American Airlines Explorer Awards aren't just ideal for round-the-world trips. They are also the ideal vehicle to take a trip to one region with many stops.

Normally you cannot take any stopovers outside North America on American Airlines awards unless you know some tricks.