I purchased savings bonds on my Starwood Amex card to take advantage of the Starwood promo. Just found out that since I have the Milage Plus Gold Visa, I can transfer the balance via a convenience check and get 1 mile for each two dollars transferred. Thus I will get miles on Amex for the original purchase. Then I will pay the bill with a Milage Plus convenience check transferring the balance to that credit card (which I will pay immediately, but there is a $50. fee) and I will get up to 10,000 miles on United! I was very careful since the convenience check says 'NO MILES FOR TRANSFERS" but the cc website said yes, so I called and the determining factor is if you have the gold card.