I think a lot of people think, "Well, I've got my American Airlines miles, so obviously the way to search for awards is to just get on aa.com and type in where I want to go and see what comes up." There's a couple of problems with that. One is that you might miss some great opportunities to use your American Airlines miles because you didn't look at other dates or you didn't look at other cities.

So for example, you might be wanting to fly somewhere far away to South Africa, let's say. Maybe you started your search in San Francisco, but the best flight awards might be available from L.A., and so you might be able to book that first leg separately to get to L.A.

and then get that great award flight. You wouldn't have seen that if you just get on aa.com and do that simple search.