Welcome to Flyer Talk! You don't say where you are traveling from, but I found opening a Virgin Atlantic account and transferring Amex points to Virgin Atlantic gives me the best bang for my buck. This assumes coach travel. Sometimes, transferring to Air France and booking with them is cost effective. Both of these carriers occasionally have bonuses on the transfers... I have gotten 1.3 points per 1 Amex points several times. One way trips in coach are 20K points, and often less on VS.