I am really new to this, but I have always liked United. I also like hyatt properties (the higher end ones). FOr this reason I have concentrated my spending for me and my wife on our Chase Ultimate Rewards cards. The 1:1 is great.

Two things I changed:
1. I would always take the lame cash back and never pay attention to spending. Now, I have started making the vast majority of my purchases through the ultimate rewards mall. I look for where I can buy the same stuff I normally do on the UR mall.

(IE I use Kiehl's soaps and shampoo and whatnot. Kiehls.com is 1x to use the card normally, 4x bonus if you buy on Kiehls.com through UR mall, and 7x bonus if you use Saks.com to purchase the same product at the same price.)

It is a few hoops to jump through but it really isn't that much more work. I look into where the biggest bonus offers are and see what they sell... I have NEVER shopped at Kohls before, until now, because it is 10x bonus at UR mall. After finding out that they sell a lot of the home goods I use (keurig, etc) I get 11x on those now.

A simple investigation can yield those huge rewards. This month I've gotten >20k in UR points spending how I normally do, just using bonuses.

2. My wife had a useless no rewards card so we got her the CSP so we can put food and travel on it. For her, all spending on that card is still more than she ever got even at 1x rewards. Have her coming around to this too.

Lastly, even if the above sounds like something very interesting to you, try to make your big purchases give you a huge bang. A $1000 purchase at 10x +1x = 11,000 points.
At the saver level, a BIZ class to Europe RT is only 100000.