British Airways has a distance based award chart with their avios (miles) plan.  There are some real sweet spots in this plan for short trips and direct flights.  For example, ORD to DCA, round trip, is only 9,000 avios and $11 in taxes.  ORD to SJU, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 25,000 avios and $11.  Flights are priced by segment, so this is really only good for single hops and direct flights – great if you live nearby a hub… especially one in the middle of the country.  BA is a oneworld partner with American Airlines.  Some flights originating from O’Hare:

Some locations perhaps worth visiting from Chicago:

Zone 1
ATL – Atlanta
BWI – Baltimore
CLT – Charlotte
CLE – Cleveland
DCA – DC
TYS – Knoxville
MEM – Memphis
MSP – Minneapolis
BNA – Nashville
PIT – Pittsburgh
YYZ – Toronto, Canada

Zone 2
ABQ – Albuquerque
AUS – Austin
BOS – Boston
DFW – Dallas
DEN – Denver
IAH – Houston
JAX – Jacksonville
YUL – Montreal, Canada
MSY – New Orleans
JFK/LGA/EWR – New York
MCO – Orlando
PHL – Philadelpha
SAT – San Antonio
TPA – Tampa

Zone 3
CUN – Cancun, Mexico
CZM – Cozumel, Mexico
LAS – Las Vegas
LAX – Los Angeles
MIA – Miami
MEX – Mexico City, Mexico
MBJ – Montego Bay, Jamaica
PHX – Phoenix
PDX – Portland
PVR – Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
SLC – Salt Lake City
SAN – San Diego
SFO – San Francisco
SEA – Seattle

Zone 4
SJU – San Juan, Puerto Rico

What’s also great about these is they are pretty easy to get – AMEX and Chase points both transfer over to British Airways Avios at 1:1 rates or better, AMEX often has 20% transfer bonuses.  Through single cards available from these issuers it’s easy to get 40,000 to 100,000 points – which is good for potentially quite a few seats…