We made plans to take a luxury cruise (Silversea) from Venice to Athens next summer. It included airfare (economy) and offered a $2,000 per person upgrade fee to Business Class. I asked about a credit for the free coach flight so we could use points for the front of the plane and it came to $800 per person.

Read on FT that US Air had a special promo where transfers from Starwood to US Air got a 50% bonus. Thus 80,000 Starpoints got 100,000 Dividend Miles (the normal bonus) PLUS an additional 50%. In the end we transferred 140,000 Starpoints and got 262,500 Dividend Miles. FC tckets via Star Alliance cost 125,000 pp.

A very kind member saw my post and became my guru! Spent time on ExpertFlyer to discover when seats would be opening up. Steve S, my coach, helped my put together an itinerary where we would fly out on Swiss to Zurich and on to Venice on the A330-300 with Swiss's new, magnificent First Class (transatlantic portion only). Returning from Athens on Lufthansa where we will stop in Frankfurt and get to try out the new First Class terminal. Two First Class tickets for 140,000 Starpoints - that, to me, is an incredible deal for tickets that almost reach $13,000!

Gets better. Our friends are "points-challenged" but I read about a different promotion on FT that said that purchases of Dividend Miles (up to 50,000 miles) would get all purchases doubled. The each bought 40,000 and each ended up with 80,000 - enough for a Business Class ticket on the same itinerary. Their cost was $1,000 per person - a mere $200 more than the rebate we got from Silversea. They think I'm a genius.

I, however, know the source of my wisdom. It's FT and the people who graciously share information for the good of the community. Perhaps my wisdom was having the Starwood AMEX but come to think of it, I probably also learned about that here!

Thanks to all!