If you can, seek flights with lower prices or lower redemption amounts from alternative airports instead of your local airports (within reason).
We live in New York and have booked flights to Park City in and out of Philadelphia, last winter and again for this winter, because the Philly flights were so many less points. Philly is about a 2 hour drive from our home. Our local airports (Newark and JFK) are about an hour drive. Each time we saved about $1500 for the extra hour drive. Totally worth it IMO. Think about how flexible you would be to save the money. I tend to be very flexible! 🙂