Copa Airlines and Panama City

[mrs767er]

"I've been away for a while now...."
using up my trans-oceanics like a fool!! I did 3 trips w/home stops:
Istanbul, Athens and Berlin--in less than 2 wks. Then I noticed my inventory of TO's was getting low! I just never check that, so when it's January and loads are wide open, I go, go go.
Now I'm sweating using the last 5 (guess I'll pay for the one $75 leg to make 3 RTs) but DOH anniversary is July.
We're going to the Amazon, and for DAL it's what they call black hole of nonrev, since we have no deals to Manaus with anyone but Copa. Has anyone flown them standby? We have option to take Delta to Panama City, then do Copa OR MIA/PTY/MAO--BUT--there is only one hour connection time in PTY--both directions. SO, does anyone recommend either way--IF I use Copa thru MIA we still have to spend a night on each end AND pray the connections work, BUT it will not use my TO's..
WHAT TO DO??
The price difference to add MIA legs RT is only $50/pax.
Any advice is greatly appreciated--even moral support for the crazy one here
PS--I will add my quickie reviews for the cities I just visited for the first time--are we all fortunate or what???