Burn or pay is really a difficult call!

IF you burn, there are NO new points toward Elite for next year without at least paying for a Coach ticket and upgrading with miles.
Then you get more miles for the paid Coach ticket portion!

I was able to get a Standard FC R/T ticket to Rio for 70,000 miles with a stopover in NYC on the return. Otherwise paid $1735.00 plus 40,000 miles to Rio. The seperate R/T to EWR was $317.00 plus 20,000 miles for FC.
So I consider for the additional 10,000 miles, I saved about $2000.00. But it may cost me dropping to Silver Elite in 2005, since I won't have 50,000 flight miles for this year!

Still not sure, it was a good way to go, but the 'deal' sounds better then spending the $2000. plus 60,000 miles. Of course the Flight miles credited from a Coach paid ticket would make it a little less expensive, and may have qualified for Gold in 2005 with a couple more miles earning trips with paid Coach tickets.