Something that has definitely changed.... Economy saver awards - at least within Latin America - are not being released in advance. I have sometimes had some luck in changing my Business saver to economy as the departure date approaches, but not often.

My Costa Rica-Colombia saver award flights in business require 40,00 miles RT, while an economy saver on the same route requires only 20,000. The flights are too short to be worth twice the miles to me, so I guess it's just one more thing about which I'll have to remain vigilant. Book it at 40, then hope it opens up at 20.

After next year (Feb 1, 2016), when I'll likely drop to Gold, this will become a bigger problem. At that point it will have $$ attached to switch. Not likely worth it. Until then, it's just one more thing to have to either work at or accept. ::heavy sigh::

The other option is to wait until the last few days and just hope that saver economy becomes available. That, unfortunately, is not always something I can risk. SJO-PTY? No sweat. Almost always plenty of availability. Connecting PTY-MDE, however, is not such a sure thing. Same is true in reverse.