Leveraging miles for last minute bookings

Contrary to my typical nature of procrastinating, I tend to purchase my plane tickets 2 months in advance due to it usually(this used very loosely) being the cheapest time to do so. Airline tickets tend to become more expensive the closer it is to departure date. So what do I do when the unforeseen happens; when I have an emergency to attend to, or maybe a last minute vacation I was approved for? Spend those hard earned miles to go to Hawaii!
 

I am vacationing with my family in Hawaii in the beginning of May, and I was just recently approved the time off for it, yes, 4 weeks later then I typically buy tickets. I did a quick search from Florida to Lihue, Kaua'i and tickets were running $800... Ouch.

I remembered that British Airways "Avios" (miles) award chart has a sweet spot for Hawai from Los Angeles (LAX).

Here is a picture of their award chart, notice that its distanced based. Meaning certain flown distances cost a set amount of Avios. LAX to Hawaii is ~2600 flown miles so it lands under 12.5k miles each way! Compare this to AA charging 45k miles, sweet deal indeed. Unfortunately I used all my 135k Avios to go on my epic trip to Asia last summer in first class, but this is where Chase Ultimate Rewards points come in handy.

British Airways Avios is a transfer partner with Chase Ultimate Rewards points, which we earned cheap using the Vanilla Ink Bold Strategy. Meaning you can transfer those points into your Avios account. I logged into my Chase account and transfered 25k points to my Avios account, it posted a couple hours later and I got my ticket!

Now that I had my LAX to Hawaii figured out, I need to get from Florida to LAX. Luckily I found a cheap flight for $262. In total I saved ~ $550 using 25k Chase Ultimate Rewards points, at a redemption value 2.2 cents per point. Not too shabby for buying those points for 0.4 cents using the Vanilla Ink Bold Strategy

One thing to note is I was not able to fly to Hawaii on the exact dates I wanted due to availability. I had to cut the vacation short in Hawaii by 2 days, but that just gave me an excuse to annoy David in Los Angeles for 2 days!