Relying on awards tickets for essential travel is potentially stressful. You could consider getting a Chase card and use the points to pay for your flights – for example, the Chase Sapphire Reserve will cost you $450 in annual fees, but you'll get a $300 credit against travel charges and 1.5c per UltimateRewards point to spend on travel (so a card with a 60000 point bonus would give you $900 to spend on travel). And you can also transfer the UltimateRewards points into a number of frequent flyer programs, giving you more choices if you do want to book rewards flights.