This is a tough one.

I’m trying to figure out how to get a family to Hawaii around Christmas time.

I have access to just about every airline’s frequent flyer miles, but have not found any FF reward seats (we’re looking for a combination of coach and first class seats) on any airline after the 17th of December unless I use “standard rewards” (euphemism for “give us double the miles we usually sell the seat for”).

We’d also pay a reasonable amount for the seats, but they are also being sold for high premiums.

Can anyone offer any creative suggestions how to tackle this without blowing through a zillion miles (such as redeeming rewards on some random international airline that flies between the mainland and Hawaii and has excess capacity for rewards because it can’t sell the seats to Americans or a way to acquire companion seats for free using a coupon or credit card I haven’t thought of). Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks.