I consider myself fairly competent in the awards game. Up until recently, we traveled with our two teenage kids extensively, and having to redeem 3-4 trips/yr, 4 seats in J on same plane, very inflexible dates due to work and school, to a variety of TATL/TPAC destinations - you gotta learn the rules.

But lately I'm finding that award prices have gone up, and revenue prices have gone down, and maybe miles don't make as much sense anymore.

Cases in point - recent trip to JFK-BOG-CUZ, LPB-LIM-BOG-JFK. $1100 in J on Avianca, would have been at least 100K on ANA plus taxes, way more on UA/AC. 1cent per AmEx MR at best, would be way less with Chase UR.
Looking at SE Asia next Feb, NYC-PEK-RGN, HAN-PEK-NYC. $1875 on AirChina, Cheapest is 136K on ANA +$331 in taxes. Again, around 1.1 cpp for Amex, way less with Chase UR.
Next summer, JFK-KPB. Aroudnd $2k on LOT or Finnair. Finnair isn't even available, LOT has 1 seat available ( I need 8). That one is not bad with ANA at 2cpm, but not a homerun either.
And I'm not even talking about hundreds of thousands of SkyPesos sitting in my accounts for years, that I can't find a good redemption for.

I get that Avianca and AirChina both suck, and redeeming on better airlines is going to be a better value ... but still...
I've never used CSR Pay with Points or AmEx Plat points rebate, but both look like really attractive propositions right now.