I use many private nodes, and my payments never fail.
But I choose very carefully my peers and sometimes I avoid direct routes with my final destinations.

My only p2p channel I have with a bar where I experiment paying my beers with keysend, through that private channel with bar owner's node.
All the rest are using 2-3-4 hops.

DarthCoin

lightning

Route Not Found

Undisciplined

Thanks. I've tried to keep in mind some of this advice from previous posts and comments you've made.

I would be using these channels more if the transactions weren't failing.