Julie:

I actually had to forfeit one of those BA 2 for 1 vouchers a while back because we just could not find flights that worked before the voucher expired, and we started looking when the flights first opened up. Even had the points pros guy try to help and he couldn't find anything that would work for us either (his words (sort of): "Award availability in Biz/First for Europe on BA is abysmal")

Right now I have boo coos of BA miles which we plan to use for a trip to Europe in 2014 (River cruise with stays in Amsterdam, Budapest, Prague and then return from Barcelona to US on Silversea). Once I use most of those miles up, I plan to focus mostly on AA, which I have personally found to be the easiest to redeem. I am a AA fan (I know a lot of folks don't like them, but we have had good experiences).