I respect everyones opinion and response. It seems those of you who have high level airline status, fly long distances constantly, and book last minute tickets view the program differently. I almost never fly enough with one airline to get any status, and usually looking to use points for aspirational J/F travel over long distances, and yes, Avios are terrible for that. I do agree every blue moon there still is some value, mainly for AA short haul.

Also I don't even remember the last time I bought a last minute plane ticket, I always plan my trips months in advance.

If I remember correctly another good way to use avios is sometimes at checkout when flying on BA or Iberia metal they will let you discount the ticket at 1c per point similar to the way Delta does, this could be a good way to blow some points as well. If I scored 1c per point on BA i'd be pleased.

Probably my best redemption is one time my former biz partner and I used the companion pass from a BA credit card and flew F on their 777 from Houston to London, but even that was pricy I think it was around 160k points + something outrageous in taxes, maybe $1.5kUSD possibly more. Theoretically it was a "$15k" purchase but both the hard and soft product was rather underwhelming compared to F in Cathay, Korean etc, I'd say about on par with China Airlines business class with a slightly nicer seat, find it hard to believe people pay $7k+ for that ticket for a 10 hour flight.

My hope is LATAM availability on BA goes back to what it was in 2017, but I think we all know thats not going to happen.