OK. I'm confused. I'm a platinum on Continental, made platinum again this year by mid March - almost half a million miles in my account. I've never really used the miles - just liked the domestic upgrades.

I'd like to book a trip to Rome for my wife and myself. In BusinessFirst. I'd just as soon pay for the tickets and use miles for the upgrades. No matter what set of dates I punch in - high season, low season, random as hell - all I ever get is a set of flights where upgrades are not available. I've tried this out as far as April of next year - same deal.

Using the miles for the flights themselves doesn't look a lot better. Knock through 300K + miles for a couple of pretty bad multi hop tickets with 5 hour layovers.

What's up? I'm clearly not an expert here but are these miles worth anything besides an upgrade to Kenosha, WI or something?

Any advice appreciated.

P.S. Sitting in Newark, seat to Tel Aviv changed 4 times by mysterious reservations glitch, not feeling very charitable towards CO at the moment.