I know, it's difficult to believe.
I am frustrated myself.

I work Mo-Th, off Fri, Sat, Sun.
On Thursday, I finish work at 2.30pm, and don't start until Mon 11 am.

When I am not at work, the business is closed.
My employees cannot work without me there, not for anything productive. It's just the nature of the business I am in. When I take off, they are off as well. They get paid personal time, but it's not fair to ask them to take personal time every time I'd like to get away for a few days.

When I am at work, I bill out about $1,000/hr. After overhead, my take home is about half of that. So I have to think real hard before I take time off, as we are talking about thousands of dollars per day.

In 12 yeas, I took 2 sick days. I've had 2 Acchilles tears with surgeries and crutches for 8 weeks each, and didn't miss a day (and I don't sit at the desk all day - I'm always moving.) I've had a child born (conveniently on a Friday ), 2 grandparents pass away, and none of these events required any days off. Obviously, I would have taken off for a birth of a child or a family funeral if I had to, but I was able to work all of that into my schedule.

Which is what makes this award ticket situation so maddening.
I have about 1.8 million miles.
I am very flexible on destinations, but not flexible on time. I'd like to fly out Wednesday or Thursday night, land early on Friday morning, and then fly out Sunday or Monday.
Because of the shortness of the trip, I don't want to spend half of it in airports waiting for a connecting flight. I am in NYC, with direct flights to everywhere. I think that's a reasonable expectation.

So, I've been looking to get away on a weekend in March or April. Prefer South America, like Rio or Buenos Aires, or maybe Barcelona.

Buenos Aires would work best, because I can fly out on Th and land Fri early AM, and then leave late Sunday night on a red-eye and go straight to work. I had tickets on UA for just that - until they canceled the direct flight.
Now, AA has availability on NYC-MIA-EZE and back , and both flights are day-time flights. They also have an overnight, but there's no availability on that.
Same with other destinations. These flights take too long. I can't fit a 5 hour layover into my schedule. It just doesn't work. It forces me to take an extra day off. I understand that most people's situation is different, but in mine, it just blows.

That's the reason I am looking at standard-level awards and thinking that maybe they work in my case. With InkBold, the difference is $1800 for 2 tickets. Pretty much a wash for me...

sorry for the long post