How do other families fly so often, is frugal flying just not for us? What tricks are we missing?

I want to see my family more often, but they are spread out all over the eastern U.S. My husband and I have a 5yo child.

Whenever we fly, it costs at least $1200-$1500. (That’s not going to destinations like Miami, that’s goin to like MSP.) I feel like we know lots of families flying all the time but don’t understand how they financially swing that.

My husband and I are both 6+ feet tall and my husband is a big guy, so things get painful if we aren’t in the extra legroom seats. Because we have such a young kid, we have to purchase in a way where we can pick our seats - we can’t get last minute assigned seats that would separate us.

We used to have the Alaska card for BOGO flights yearly, but now we don’t live near an Alaska hub, and they don’t have nonstop flights to the destinations we want to go to.

I’ve had a delta account for years but still don’t have enough miles to cover a single flight….how do people build up enough miles to use them all the time?

I feel like I’m missing something with making air travel cheaper. Is it that most people are under 6 feet tall so they can deal with the cheap seats? Most people take shitty times like redeyes? Most people use things like Expedia where you don’t actually get assigned a seat?

Edit- when we lived in the PNW it seemed like ppl we knew regularly flew to India / Asia to see extended family, or flew to Hawaii/california for vacation couple times a year, etc. We just don’t get how.