Originally Posted by beachmouse

The best hotel deals are probably IHG or Accor depending on your stay patterns because you can redeem an unlimited number of times a year and they've posted as elite-qualifying points. You'd get 16K IHG points and gold status for $400 e-Rewards or 6625 Accor points (value a little more than 120 euros) and silver status in that program.

If you can play the Avios game in a way that wasn't whacked too much by the recent devaluations, Iberia Avios are pretty good and aren't geography-locked like the Avios Avios option are. For US travel, Southwest is pretty decent. I don't know enough about Jet Blue to say if that one is a good value.