Well, TG award flight from Reno to Madrid are no longer being sent thru LHW with those outrageous fees.

LHW? do you mean LHR???

Because LHW is Lanzhou Zhongchuan in China.

Yes, LHR.

The 'outrageous' fees BTW are not because of LHR - they are because the flights were on BA. If you looked for non-BA options you would see ff award tix on AA are much cheaper.

In fact I've got a four leg R-T on AA starting this coming Monday and my total out of pocket is $127 (taxes). That is because I specifically eliminated BA flights from my searches.

Right, but before it was sometimes impossible to avoid them on award flights.

The mile-saver flights are almost always on BA to/from the UK. If you opt to pay more miles (anytime & business) you can get lower cash-priced AA flights and often fewer stops. I resigned myself to paying more miles last trip and flew AA all 4 segments.

I fly out tomorrow on AA metal on a ff ticket - mile saver both ways.