i feel your pain. my parents used to make my sister and i meet them in sbh during x-mas and the airlines were never too cooperative (especially coming from norcal; i could have gone to australia for the same $). like someone else suggested, this would be a good time to use miles. i just checked aa.com and -much to my surprise- there was lots of availability on your dates for 30,000 miles. personally, i'd be tempted to use the miles in place of the $400 ticket; with the $800 ticket, it's a no-brainer.