Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

For award travel to China, Japan, and South America, AA is a very good program, as AA flies to all three areas (with nonstops from JFK to Brazil, Argentina, and Japan), and also partners with CX, JL, and LA. AA's program is weaker to Greece and Turkey, because BA -- which flies to both -- has surcharges for award travel on its flights, even when booked with AA miles. One particularly valuable feature of AA's program is the free, North American "gateway" stopover. For the cost of a nonstop award flight from South America to JFK, for example, you can fly to JFK, stop over there for weeks or months, and then continue on to another North American destination -- including Hawaii or the Caribbean -- for no additional mileage. Of course, with the AA/US merger, there may be changes to the AAdvantage program in the near future.

I tend to credit my Avis and Hertz rentals to VS (Virgin Atlantic), as even a one-day rental can earn 1,000 VS miles, with no frequent-flyer fee charged by the car-rental company. (Miles credited to a domestic FFP often come with a frequent-flyer surcharge, which diminishes the value of the miles earned.)