I'll just back up to your earlier post and say-- have a plan of action. Look at the cities you want to go to, see what hotel chain has a hotel there, and what airline flies there from LA, SFO or where ever. That is pretty much everybody, since those are big hub cities.

If you want to go to Europe, great, either Star or One World alliances will get you there. AA has a great program and a HUGE plus of 20K o/w during off peak, which is essentially every date except the summertime. Then (eventually) they give you a 10% points rebate, so it's really 18K o/w.

I suggest that you concentrate on a complementary set of credit cards... like UA and Ink or AA and BA and Membership rewards. The reason for this is that both of these will boost your point balances to an amount of points that are redeemable. If you have, say, 53K points in one program and 19K in another... you are still pretty far away from 2 r/t tickets to Europe. Both the UA and AA program allow for o/w redeemptions, though, so that opens up some options. Don't apply for so many cards that you miss your spend thresholds or go bonkers trying to keep track. Do join Award Wallet to help you with your new hobby.

Keep reading-- I know I was completely glazed over when I first discovered FT. Keep at it. It will all start to make more sense.