Jed, we are members of United's Mileage Plus program and accumulate the bulk of our points by using a Mileage Plus Visa card issued by Chase. Since United is part of the Star Alliance, we can redeem miles for flights (or upgrades) on several other airlines, including Thai, Lufthansa, Air Canada, Singapore and Swiss. You can find all the details of the program on United's website. There is a promotion right now where you can click on a link on the site and earn 21,000 miles by applying for the credit card.

To redeem United miles on another Star Alliance airline, you go through United. I just did it on Singapore Air. You talk to a call center in India.

Craig - In May, my wife and I got new United cards, just to get the FF. For some reason, my wife got 21K, I didn't get any. I may have applied too soon after cancelling my old one.

FYI - United says: 'Please note: We will no longer accept Star Alliance Upgrade Award requests at this time.' ((*))

Jed, I applied for a new card (my 3rd) earlier this year to try to get some more miles. Shortly after I received the card, I received a letter saying that I was not eligible for the miles since I had already applied for a card (my 2nd) and received miles for that one. If you did not get any correspondence from Chase, you ought to contact them and ask why you weren't credited for the miles.

Interesting that United is no longer accepting Star Alliance upgrades - it was a rather complicated process anyway - you had to upgrade by trip segment rather than just upgrading your whole itinerary. You can still redeem miles for business and first class seats on Star Alliance airlines, however.

Who knows how many credit cards Bob has? He's the absolute champion of credit cards for miles.

My mother just redeemed her United miles for Business class flights LAX-BKK on Singpore and then switched the reservation to Thai. No problem.

So, I guess they are just not "upgrading" for Star Alliance partners but you can still book full award tickets?

Ok, sorry, didn't read Craig's full reply above.

In the last year, I applied for 16 CC for my wife and me. I have to keep a scorecard, so I hope I will not make any mistakes. It was a devil to pay for each account bill. I have now narrowed it down to using USAir Visa and Delta AMEX, which I use for Costco. I also have to be ready to cancel those which charge after 1 year.

I have over 600K, but am finding that seats are hard to get when you want them. I could not use <i>anything</i> to get BC seats to South Africa for Oct. ((*))

Andy, Judging from Jed's credit card track record, &quot;absolute&quot; may be too strong a word for Bob's skills in manipulating the banking system.

Jed, did you start 330 days in advance for your BC seats to South Africa? And, just curious what airline/programs were you attempting to use?

One more thing, Jed - Thai has a history of good availability for free tix on their direct flights from the USA to Bangkok - probably because its relatively new.

Unfortunately, we decided on SA about 5 mo ago. I know that is too late, but I was still trying.

I tried to use my USAir miles, and called several times, but there were no seats on Lufthansa, Air France, Swiss Air, SAA, Virgin. I also tried Using Delta FF to get KLM, but no dice. So I gave up about 2 months ago and paid for PE seats on Virgin, as a compromise.

BTW, when we went to Thailand 2 years ago, we could not get BC seats either, so we got PE on Thai JFK-BKK. It was very acceptable. ((*))

I have found it's much easier using my DL FF miles to get to SA on Air France or a combination of DL, CO and AF. KLM is extremely hard to get seats on even well in advance.

i find the 331 day rule usually works for me (northwest, delta, american and united and their partners)....however i had no problems getting thai air about 300 days in advance going to bkk but have to have singapore coming home....catch: to add on the flight from bkk to singapore is too many miles for an award ticket so i have to pay for that segment...these are economy seats....

i found united very easy to deal with and it was not always the delhi call center...

i did my seats on thai yesterday....i had to wait on hold for 35 minutes to get through....

on the credit card issue....i find that chase is particularily hard to deal with....they finally caught up with me and have slowed me down...i am systematically closing my accounts with them---I'LL SHOW THEM!!!!

in general you are allowed to receive points once per year on each type of account: i.e. one for a business card, once for a personal reguar account, once for a premier personal account.....best to wait for 1 year after closing an account or at least 6 months....

Hey,......points awards are a bonus!

ROS is a pleasure.....any which way!!

Kristina, if you are using AA, then check out the offers from chase for both mastercard and amex, the bonus miles average around 25,000 to 40,000 just for signing up. My wife and I never borrow money so it doesn't really matter to us what happens to our credit scores when they have a hard pull to approve a new card every 6 months or so. So if you get both the mastercard and the amex and do that twice in one year, that's 160,000 miles! You can check out flyertalk.com for more info on that. Also they can help you get signed up for the gold or platinum challenge.

Hi-Thanks for the info on the Hilton-We will be in Bangkok for 8 nights so I could change our last night in BKK to another hotel.Since we'll be gone for a month total the first night is just a jet lag night &amp; the last night is just to relax &amp; breath in the view.I did order a River executive room though-that was why I wanted to be on the River.
I guess we travelers are all alike with credit cards for miles-I have AA-Delta-USAirways &amp; 3 Alaska cards-I get a companion flight with each of the Alaska &amp; its not just the Cont US-Works for Canada &amp; Mexico travel.

Well, I just booked 4 FREE nights at the ROS in December using my mother's AMEX points which she will transfer to SPG points. Yay! :)
I booked a standard deluxe room and am hoping we will be upgraded on arrival due to mom's Gold status.
Since I've now stayed at the Pen and the Westin Grand, it will be an interesting comparison to stay at the ROS.

K-make sure you get to the Gallery Cafe. It's just around the corner from the ROS. Make a right out of the lobby, follow along as the road bends to the left. The GC will be on your right before you get to Chaorn Kreung.

Moms are nice...let's all take a minute to thank the goddess for giving us FF miles and moms...and can I say how much I love FREE.

To all struggleing wiht United FF--keep trying ---there are US call centers if you know the numbers: try this one for ff mile stuff and upgrades 800-225-800, go thru the prompts, and you will get to the US.

I had booked SA with miles to Bangkok and found it was not on the new 777-300er I wnated, and then I kept callign to change to Thai-- took some time but got it done.

Now if I could just get Amex to transfer the dang points....