Miles Quesion with Hotel Awards
 

I just made Silver Elite with Continental and expect to make Gold by July 13 and Platinum by December 2. Couldn't believe I was upgraded to First on a Houston to Miami flight when I had lost my elite status. The only thing I had going for me was that I booked the ticket when I was Silver Elite.

But now my question is what to do with my miles from other airlines. I can't see myself going back to flying Delta where I have 22,000 miles. With American I have 48,000 miles and with British Airways I have 26,000 miles. I will looking forward to the double miles that Continental gives when flying with Gold Status.

I'm considering using my miles with the other airlines to purchase hotel rooms in Europe. I checked with American Airlines and 30,500 miles will get me four nights at the Colon hotel. I visited the website of the hotel and that would cost $420.56 for four nights.

Seeing that BA and AA are charging quite a tax in a free flight, would this be a horrible use of miles?

I have over 170,000 miles with Continental that I haven't used yet. I just don't want to loose miles with the other airlines.

I just checked Delta's website and 22,000 miles won't even get one a compact rental car for one day. Maybe a bed in a 14 bed hostel?

Delta has gift cards with $50 ones running about 6000-7000 miles. Worth a lot more than a rental car day.

Having said that you are quite close to the 25K needed for a domestic award trip (and yes, they are available at that rate). It may be worth getting the additional 3000 miles. I am thinking of doing the same for my AA miles account where I am just short of an attractive flight award but have little plans to fly AA in the future.

I had to Google Colon Hotel, thought maybe it was a typo:-d

www.hotelcolon.es/eng/hotel/feature.asp

Great location if you don't want to rent a car.