Well, you generally need to nudge those balances up to 25k per account for them to be useful for a free domestic ticket. Since you need to have some activity, that should push out any expiration dates to at least 2006. On most majors, miles expire after three years of no activity (although some define redemption as activity and some don't).

I'd recommend the following:

- AA: Make this your primary iDine airline. Use iDine + maybe a long-distance carrier to get yourself to 25k via mostly normal spending. Look on the AA board for occasional one-off 500 or 1000 mile earning opportunities. Look on AA.com to see if you can earn a few miles by switching your email statement preferences. (Actually, do this for all of your accounts.) You probably DON'T need to run out and get the AA Mastercard because there are so many odd AA partners, unless you can get in on that deal where the bonus miles post before the annual fee hits. (Again, see the AA forum.)

- DL: Get a DL Amex with 10,000 bonus miles.

- CO: Don't know. Maybe push these through Amtrak to another program? I have never flown CO and don't know anything about their program.

- NW: If there is a way to get those CO miles to NW, do that - even if you have to take a hit on the conversions. Then nudge up NW to 25k with iDine and/or LD carrier.

- UA: Get the Mileage Plus Visa with 15k bonus miles.

So for UA and DL, you are simply 2 credit card annual fees ($85 and $60, I believe) away from 2 free tickets. For AA and NW, you are close enough to get there with "normal" spending, assuming that you use the occasional iDine restaurant (which isn't a stretch in Chicago).

Edited to add: If you are very patient, and simply want to avoid having miles expire, you can iDine all of these airlines (except maybe CO - don't know about them). That activity will preserve your balances if you simply want time to think about what to do next. My recommendations assume that you want your free tickets in a somewhat timely manner, therefore justifying the credit card fees.

[This message has been edited by pinniped (edited 07-25-2003).]