Thank you to everyone for all the feedback. I read and considered all of it. This is my current plan. She will apply for two points cards very soon. The Citi Thank You Premier for 50k and the Chase Saphire Prefered for 50K. Assuming she gets both, she could use them to buy coach airfare to Paris. I have no personal experience with either card, but my reading here and elsewhere indicates that after she spends and gets the points she will be able to buy tickets through their portals using the points as the equivalent of cash. Is that correct? If so with the bonus for travel she should save $625 off each coach ticket.

Then in 90 or more days she could do the 80k PC card and use them to book a decent HI in Paris for 5 nights using cash points at 15K/night - assuming that deal is still available. But I feel like the hotel end of it should be easier because using Priceline or possibly some other card or deal she could get at least a decent rate somewhere.