My miles are piling up and I can't decide where to go. If I was allowed a stop-over on the way to somewhere else it might help me decide. Before I think about the possibilities can anyone tell me what is allowed, if anything?

And if someone knows the answer to that, you also may know why flights to BKK don't appear in searches using miles. KL, yes, and I could buy a ticket from there, but I cannot imagine there isn't a way with miles. Maybe a call would do it, as I've found has been the case once or twice before.

Stopovers (over 4 hours on domestic itineraries, 24 on international ones) are no longer allowed. Because all AA awards are one-way, if you want to stopover at some intermediate point, you'll have to redeem enough miles for two one-way trips, say US to Hong Kong on the first, then a second award for Hong Kong to Bangkok. Now it's possible to set up a long connection, say 23 hours and 50 minutes, if you can find arrival and departure times that work. I've done this on a number of occasions, for example intentionally using daytime flights to London that arrive in the evening, followed by "forcing" a late afternoon flight (the next day) to someplace in Europe or the Middle East. In that case you pay the miles for the ultimate destination; the overnight "connection" in London is a freebie. (You also don't pay UK APD on the second flight.) But the times have to work.

I didn't have any trouble finding award availability to Bangkok, using JAL via Tokyo and (in business class) also via KL. It might depend on your dates. If you want to use Cathay Pacific metal over the Pacific, you'll have to phone AA as they don't show CX availability on their website.

As I suspected on the layover. I may very well buy the 2nd leg or choose locations where surface travel makes sense. And thanks for the details for BKK, Gardyloo. I hadn't looked in business but will now. All my trans-Pacific flights have been on Cathay Pacific, always good. I knew you'd know.