The original United program: 2 first class tickets to Hawaii PLUS a week in a Hilton hotel for 75,000 miles. Best program awards, hands down. This was in the early 80's....took out trip in '87.

I also pine for the fly-writes on Northwest.....they were each (20k) worth a roundtrip....just show up with one and you could take any flight...just as long as not a blackout date printed on the fly-writes. While they did expire, this was in the days of 30k to europe or Hawaii....and upgrades via certificates were easy to get and use.

Finally, while there have been some fantastic promotions (triple miles, etc.), current programs are far too diluted, and there's far too much code-sharing for there to be much differences today.